The terms on which many modern businesses employ their workers requires urgent attention. One of the worst offenders is Sports Direct, whose owner, Mike Ashley, is the very model of a bloated modern capitalist. Anyone who has made a fortune persuading those of unsporting gait to dress as professional footballers is clearly adept at exploiting the wishful thinking of others; but there have to be limits. One boundary has now been established by Zahera Gabriel-Abraham, a former worker who has won a settlement forcing the company to advertise plainly the benefits it offers to most of its employees. Although the zero-hours workers can be employed for years without security, and are essentially doing the same work as the minority who have full employment rights, this wasn’t being made clear to them at all when they signed up. That will now happen. To stand up against a giant company such as Sports Direct requires a rare courage and determination. To do so for the benefit of so many others is magnificent. Gabriel-Abraham is far more of a hero than the footballers whose replica shirts she sold.
