A former employee of the Croydon branch of retailer Sports Direct has launched legal action over her zero-hours contract, laying the ground for a tribunal battle which could impact thousands of workers nationwide.
Zahera Gabriel-Abraham, 30, quit her job at the Whitgift Centre store last month after suffering panic attacks, which she says were caused by her family's financial insecurity.
She was one of 20,000 of the sports retailer's 23,000 workers employed on controversial contract which guarantees no working hours or income.
Business secretary Vince Cable on Sunday suggested there was "some exploitation" of workers on zero-hours contracts at firms across the UK.
Miss Gabriel-Abraham, who lives in Croydon, said: "If you happen to fall out of line, or your manager thinks you have not done very well that week, your hours just get cut – you feel like you are just at the beck and call of the people above you.
"I felt I always had to play up to someone's ego just to work – and in the end you just start to feel a bit bullied.
"Regularly they would call you in the middle of the day and they are like: 'Can you come to work now?' You feel like you have to say yes because if you say no you are seen as unreliable and the next week you don't get a shift, it is as simple as that.
"I felt hugely manipulated and bullied the whole time."
Elizabeth George, a barrister at Leigh Day, which is acting for Ms Gabriel-Abraham, said: "We are not arguing that employers cannot have genuine flexible contracts, but the contract under which Ms Gabriel-Abraham worked, and which all SportsDirect.com 20,000 part-time employees appear to be working, has no flexibility at all for those people who sign them.
"There was no practical difference between the obligations put on my client by the company and those placed on full-time staff."
David Babbs, executive director of campaign group 38 Degrees, which is supporting Ms Gabriel-Abraham's tribunal claim financially, said: "If the case is successful, we hope that this will set a precedent for zero-hours contracts."
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found up to four per cent of the country's workforce were on such contracts.
It is believed around 250,000 people work on zero-hours contracts in the UK, including at McDonald's, Cineworld and Buckingham Palace.
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