With no guaranteed working hours and pay often below the minimum wage, care workers are often seen as the Cinderella service of the welfare state. The situation is just as bad for the elderly people who rely on themThe other day I bumped into Helen, who was one of the care workers who used to tend to my Mum’s needs before she died last July.Helen looked exhausted and explained how, on a zero-hours contract, she was at the whim of the managers regarding her working hours. Under such contracts, there is no obligation for employers to offer work or for workers to accept it. For Helen, this means that she can get a day packed with back-to-back calls or a couple of hours of work in the morning, then a gap of four hours before again getting stacked-up calls into the evening.I cast my mind