Unpaid internships

[Sunshine55]

Am I being unreasonable to think that unpaid internships should be banned. It seems a lot of companies just use this as an excuse for unpaid workers and once their contract has finished they get someone else in for unpaid work its just not fair.

I don't think they should be banned. Like zero hours contracts they CAN be exploitative but not always.

I work in a sector that uses a lot of volunteers, in ethical organisations, people intern or volunteer for the number of hours they can manage, either alongside study or alongside paid work, it's invaluable to the organisations (all non-profit making) and to the people gaining both experience and 'feel-good' factor. I don't see how you can ban unpaid internships without banning all volunteering, and I think volunteering is a good thing.

However, interns, like volunteers, should have clear roles, terms and conditions and it should be a two-way beneficial agreement.

And no, OhTheHugeManatee, I'm arguing for proper funding of MH care, not withdrawal of it.

Like in other areas of healthcare?

And I was one of those meanies arguing for withdrawal of healthcare from everyone who uses the NHS, too, by supporting the nurses' pay claim.

Those saying 'work experience' should be allowed but with a limit of say 4 weeks.... how would you deal with volunteers. Say the woodland trust or national trust which have thousands of volunteers... do you ban those who are hoping it will lead to a paid job in the sector? only allow retired volunteers or those with alternative careers already?

ime. both wt and nts treat their volunteers extremely well, and voluntary experience with either can be invaluable on cvs along with academic training for conservation work or heritage work.

I think whether the "employer" is a profit-seeking organisation is a good first line to draw.

There might need to be more sophisticated guides beyond that, especially the way many registered charities have taken the Treasury's shilling to provide public services in lieu of paid public sector workers.

PausingFlatly
I gave my opinion. Interns should be paid, as they have their importance in a company, mostly as a pool of potential employees. And no matter what they are paid, they are still Interns. Let's not try to redefine the word Intern to just so you are right. So my posts are actually relevant, even if they do not go with your point.

LilAnnieAmphetamine Have you already meet somebody that looked and sounded absolutely fantastic in an interview, or even if the first weeks of their employment? And then, you realize that they are lazy and incompetent, but sell themselves pretty well? I did, and I am glad that it was for an internship, so we could wait it out and then try for somebody better.
That's the goal of an internship for a lot of companies. Identify and train the good, so they can be hired, and avoid burdening themselves with a bad employee protected by a contract.

@PausingFlatly

Justine, can you tell us why you call these staff "interns", not temps?

It would help pick apart what is going on in this field.

Certainly - it's because they usually are across a number of areas - so an intern might spend some time on bloggers network and some time on the community desk. The idea is that they get some experience of the industry to see if it's for them.

We might then offer an intern a job, possibly into an entirely different area - the benefit for us is that we've had time to get to know them and see their qualities - and hopefully they've been able to get a handle on whether it's the right fit for them too.

Obviously we don't only hire interns though - we hire graduates and non-grads into full and part time roles as well. To be honest whether we hire interns or not I think it's a great opportunity for them to get a foot on the career ladder in this very competitive jobs market we're in.

Thank you Justine. But I'm no clearer in understanding the difference between an intern and an employee with a job at MN.

Are interns employees? On short term contracts and protected by employment regs (not that those are much for short termers)?

Or are they volunteers who are paid pocket money?

Or... what?

As you can see from the exchange with Ofa, there is no definition of intern - and the ambiguity offers socially acceptable cover for businesses which do wish to exploit workers.

I think it's important to get a handle on this terminology, because there seems to have been a blurring of lines in recent years.

Someone recently described mandatory unwaged work as "an employment opportunity." It was clear that there was no job at the end of it, and no training involved. And it certainly was an "opportunity" to "do work", but didn't seem to have much to do with employment.

At least not if employment means a contract between two parties where one agrees to provide X amount of pay and the other agrees to provide Y amount of work in exchange.

Similarly, we have a situation where people are designated by the DWP to be "employed", but actually they are casual labourers for companies which have asked them to sign "zero hour contracts." So people aren't eligible for benefits, but also don't work any hours and therefore don't get paid.

It all seems a lot of sleight of tongue.

YABU. I did voluntary work many years ago and while some people don't agree with it- it opened many, many doors for me and lead me to where I am today.

Voluntary work is fine-and it definitely opens doors -but the fact is that a lot of people cannot afford it and -as usual-you waste talent.
I live in a very rural part. My son was never going to get a job locally when he left university. Applying for one was difficult as they all wanted experience. The obvious answer was to do work experience to get it. We couldn't afford it-he had just done 3 years at university and there was no way we could keep him in a major city (which is where he had to be) to work for free. Sad but a fact of life-for us and for many.
Luckily he finally got a break and a proper graduate level job, in London and can keep himself.
It is an unfair system where those with all the advantages get even more, because their parents can pay for rent, food, travel,clothes, entertainment etc. They are no better qualified or employable-they just have parental money behind them.

Isn't it basically the same as an internship though? Gaining experience without getting paid is it not? Also you can volunteer for 16 hours a week and still claim job seekers allowance. I'm sure it would be the same with an unpaid internship (assuming based on the same hours). Working unpaid for 16 hours a week leaves plenty of time to work a "proper" job even if it's in the short term.

Employers want experience- its only natural. If your going into an independent business say (and I say this as a business owner myself)- your business is your baby. You wouldn't trust someone who didn't have a clue to mess everything up and potentially ruin your reputation would you? I certainly wouldn't. I prefer someone with several years experience to come and work for me- but if someone applied with say 3 months experience and we got on i'd certainly be willing to give them a go if I think they could cope.

I do agree there are people who exploit others- but they are in a minority in my experience fortunately.

My son didn't get anywhere with job seekers allowance-gave up trying to claim it in the end.

I'm not sure why? Does he have savings in excess of 16k? I'm assuming he's an adult and will be considered independent even if he lives at home with you. I claimed JSA when living with my parents and they earnt more than enough to support me if they wanted to- and they didn't which is fair enough. It isn't a bragging exercise btw- just baffled as to why your son wouldn't be entitled to it unless he has the means to support himself from savings.

In fact ignore the adult comment as you have to be over 18 to claim anyway (or is it 16?!)

You ring up a helpline, they ask some questions and if your eligible they send you off for your appointment. If there is no money barriers stopping him I can only think it's because he couldn't be bothered?!

In light of the information above is support a call for internships to be capped at 16hrs a week unpaid.
That allows p/t work or even full-time work if the hours fit. I worked two casual jobs while working on an internship and I always make it possible for my interns to meet their paid job commitments.

He had savings- I don't really know, he 2 lots of forms and discussions at the job centre and I said don't bother. He was living at home.

I don't know if I've missed a post saying this but it is my understanding that unpaid internships are already illegal in the UK. We have the National Minimum Wage (separate rules for apprenticeships) and if an intern is classed a 'worker' then they have to be paid. And so they should if they're doing work.

www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-interns

I strongly dislike unpaid internships and the inequality they perpetuate. It's not fair that only the children of the rich can access certain professions because they're the only ones who can afford to work full time for free. And ultimately society misses out on talented but poor young people doing those jobs in favour of someone whose parents could help them out.

YANBU

It's a terrible state of affairs, for the young straight out of school or university, but also for older people who are looking for a career change. A pre-requisite for getting a job seems to be an ability to live without income for a year while you gain "experience."

I graduated university with a BA in sciences. I then realised to get a job that was relevant to my area and was not minimum wage, I would have to do a further qualification and take out another loan. Some people who graduated the same time as me had connections via their parents and went straight into the industries they wanted with no problem.

The second qualification was so time-demanding that I found it very hard to work a waitress job in the evenings (lectures would finish at 7, my shift would start at 7.30.) I exhausted myself so much that I graduated with, I believe, a lower grade than I would have, had I been able to concentrate fully on my studies.

When I emerged from the second qualification, ostensibly ready to enter the world of work and with a load of debt, I discovered that in order to get that job I would have to do an indefinite period of "work experience" in that job's environment in order that I could get to know how a specific company worked and then slip seamlessly into their environment once they decided to pay me. There was an awful lot of postulating about how I had all the "theory" but no practical experience - yet to the ones who had only practical experience, they were told they didn't have the "theory," therefore they had to either go away and fund a qualification or accept a lower wage permanently.

Add to that the internship/work experience meant that I was worked into the ground and was basically the dumping bin for all tasks that no-one else wanted to do, it was incredibly exploitative.

Usually the headquarters for most mainstream jobs and areas are in London or big cities where the rent is high, so unless you have family who is willing to contribute, you are completely stuck and usually end up in a different and lower-paid job than the one you are qualified for, or miles out of town with a long and expensive commute. My parents could not help me and had already stopped supporting me at 17. They were baffled, actually, and thought that I was useless or unemployable, because in their day (the days of grants that you didn't have to pay back) it was much more straightforward. Therefore, the internship for me was unsustainable and I had to take a very basic job, purely to survive, despite having built up a whole load of debt on a postgraduate diploma which I was told that I needed.

Now, past 30, I have only just begun in the specific industry that I always wanted to be part of and was trained for. And that is because I have lucked out in meeting DH who has supported me the whole length of an internship. One where I was well-rested and focused and was not working a night shift on top of my day shift. Now, past 30, I am finally entering the industry I am qualified for on a graduate salary.

Yanbu

£1k a month for a MN internship.Surely that would barely cover rent and travel in London.

Only the rich could afford to support their children whilst they did it.

Utterly unfair leg up.They need to go.

I dunno, it sounds a lot to me, but I'm in the North and could live like a queen on that as a single person.

I feel ambivalent about this, I can see all the problems and inequities of unpaid internships but as other posters have said the NHS gains so much from internships and I can't think of any workable way of distinguishing between volunteer work and unpaid internships. I also generally feel uncomfortable with the idea of going as far as banning this kind of arrangement.

YANBU

The gap between those at the top of the tree and those at the bottom has widened dramatically over the last few years. It has been exacerbated by the rise in internships. This programme on Channel 4 the other night explains it perfectly.

There just seem to be fewer and fewer junior roles. Rather than working your way up the ranks people are expected to hit the ground running in jobs with higher workload/more responsibility. My old company recruited a young girl as PA to the MD/Management Team and she was hopeless. I don't think she actually realised what she was supposed to be doing. We all came to the conclusion that she'd thought it sounded like a nice job and she'd have a go'. They got rid of her after a year or so.

It seems like the world has gone mad.

That explains exactly why it is wrong, hugefatso.

Just read the op. I think there are some really beneficial aspects for a candidate doing an internship. They can get some really valuable job experience. Of course only people who can support themselves can avail of it. It can be exploitative, of course. However, a person can get experience they might not get if they were going for a competition for paid employment. It can be a win win situation. Maybe skewed towards people who don't need to be paid.

A wonderful scheme for the well off- it gives them a tremendous advantage as it cuts out what might be very serious competition.

@LePetitMarseillais

Yanbu

£1k a month for a MN internship.Surely that would barely cover rent and travel in London.

Only the rich could afford to support their children whilst they did it.

Utterly unfair leg up.They need to go.

No I don't think that's right - from what I can see our interns are mostly not supported by parents but live communally in a kind of studenty (but not so grimy) set up with 4 or so to a flat/house. I really don't think they feel exploited - they feel like it's an opportunity.