BITCHY ‘STYLE’ EDITORS ADMIT TO POKING FUN AT ‘ENTITLED WORKIES’
The Sunday Times has shocked Graduate Fog by publishing a feature presenting young jobseekers as hilariously entitled and lazy.
The piece includes an admission that senior editors routinely poke fun at the young (unpaid) interns they come into contact with, in a game called “Entitlement Top Trumps.” As journalist Kate Spicer explains:
It’s a very zeitgeisty sort of game. It’s all rather muttered and under the radar because, officially, the noble unpaid workie or intern is a mascot for our sad times: the ambitious, stoical “lost generation” child slave fighting for a foothold in an impoverished jobs market…
Graduate Fog wishes Style’s editors had kept their appalling game “muttered” and “under the radar” – because it is deeply offensive and unhelpful to the hundreds of thousands of young people currently trying to find work in this country. Plus, it makes their own staff look like massive bitches.
I’m also concerned that this article is continuing a growing trend – first reported on by Graduate Fog last week – for the mainstream media to turn against a generation of young people struggling to find a place for themselves in the job market. (On Friday we highlighted a piece by the London Evening Standard which implied that it was your fault that you’re jobless, because you’re lazy.)
Graduate Fog would like to remind Style’s editors of how damaging this kind of editorial is a time of high youth unemployment and when many of us are battling to get the issue of unpaid internships taken seriously by the wider public.
To devote two pages of such an influential newspaper – the Sunday Times is owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch – to this new ‘breed’ suggests to readers that interns like this are representative of young people as a whole. The subtext is: “See? THIS is why young people aren’t getting jobs. It’s because they’re all useless. But hey, at least it’s funny for us to watch them failing.” Nice.
Although Spicer cautions briefly that this “entitled” behaviour is exhibited by “some – not all” interns, readers will undoubtedly finish the piece with the overall impression that young people today somehow deserve to be struggling to find work.
Also, the piece is touted in the contents page as:
I WANT IT ALL
Kate Spicer on the generation for whom entitlement is a birthright
So which is it, Style? Are we talking about some young people – or all young people who behave like this?
It is also worth pointing out that the piece concentrates on the most extreme cases of young (female) workers who come into workplaces like the Sunday Times and act as if the world owes them a job.
Graduate Fog would like to remind the Sunday Times Style that if you don’t pay your interns (which they don’t), you are more likely to find yourself lumbered with interns who behave like pampered princesses. I don’t deny that these girls do exist (in tiny numbers) – but perhaps if you paid your young staff for the work they do, you might end up with a more diverse group of ‘workies’ and find they had a better attitude – and a stronger work ethic?
Furthermore, Spicer presents no data to support her claim that “The new entitlement” is a problem that is apparently sweeping workplaces across our great nation – all her evidence is purely anecdotal.
If she doesn’t have anything useful to say, perhaps in future she should stick to doing what she does best – writing about botox.
*Are you concerned that the British media isn’t supporting jobless young people?
Do you think it’s fair for them to criticise the few interns who behave badly during their placements – or do you worry that editorial like this will make employers – and the wider public – less sympathetic to the graduate unemployment problem?
One of the big supermarkets is opening up locally. It’s got 56 jobs to offer and 1,800 candidates have already applied. The supermarket said many of these candidates were unusually well qualified ….
Kate Spicer is writing about the ‘I want it all’ generation? The women who tried to lose a stone in a few weeks with crash diets and attempted to get her face sorted with quick fixes(Super Botox me)for the sake of a documentary/’journalism’?
Her opinion really is useless and it would be interesting to see how she got into the industry with her pathetic ‘lifestyle’ articles. So not only are the poor interns providing free work but free entertainment? Sickening.
@SB
Ouch! I actually quite like Kate Spicer’s articles on botox, weight loss etc (and as a ‘lifestyle’ journo myself I should be careful about slinging mud!). I just wish that she wouldn’t use her position / name on such a big newspaper to stir up the feeling that young people are all useless / entitled etc when it’s a subject she knows nothing about (unless I’m mistaken?).
In fairness, I blame her editors at Style more – it’s their fault for commissioning and publishing such a nasty little piece. And I can’t believe they didn’t realise how bitchy and mean it makes their team sound! That says it all really…
This sort of “journalism” is sloppy, badly researched, vindictive and foolish. It really just shows complete ignorance of this issue and contempt for young, educated and ambitious people to write and publish this sort of piece. I have a sneaking suspicion that some middle-aged, rather lazy employees who feel a little too settled and comfortable in their jobs are more than a little bit threatened and intimidated by my generation. Hence the nasty, petty and immature way we are portrayed by some in the media.
Well I’ve just added my own twopenneth on SearchWarp. This kind of thing is really starting to anger me most royally.
http://searchwarp.com/swa709231-Work-Shy-Graduates-Graduate-Bashing-Is-The-New-Fashion-Trend-It-Seems.htm
How disgusting.
And it’s not just the old guard. I remember sending a grovelling email to a young journo at Grazia magazine telling her how much I admired her work and how much I’d appreciate some advice (a friend of mine knew her at uni, and she’s 23, like me, so I foolishly thought she’d have some compassion).
Her response? ‘Ha ha ha’.
Needless to say, I’ve gone right off magazine journalism.
But I hasten to add, I would that this is as proportional a representation of the media’s attitude to young workers as the girls in last night’s show ‘Working Girls’ are a proportional representation of the lost generation.
The media are just picking up on it, its the attitude of bosses that is the real problem and that is feeding through to their employees which is feeding through to the media which is feeding through to society in general. Graduates are becoming the new lepers as far as I can see.
Obviously I got in by being an unpaid intern.
Everyone did.
And I worked as a waitress in the evening to pay my rent
Thanks for your interest
Kate Spicer
Hi Kate, sorry but thats a spectacularly unhelpful answer – you say nothing of how long you had to work as an intern, which is important as it seems to me that todays interns have to work as such without really seeing an end-date to their internship and commencement of paid employment, secondly, how many hours did you do as a waitress? What level of fatigue did it impose on your performance at work? Third, were you supported by contributions from your family? What were the rent levels like back then compared to today? Your answer sounds extremely glib and sarcastic – working hard of course is admirable and necessary, but there’s a difference between working hard and working oneself into the ground, into a complete state of nervous and physical exhaustion because of the tendency for todays employers and the state itself to continually put more and more brick walls in the way of those who want to progress. Your view of the situation is coloured because of your nice, cosy, position as a successful journalist. I agree you had to work hard for it, but you don’t seem to appreciate that things are incredibly much worse for todays graduates, there doesn’t seem to be even a slight indication of sympathy for todays graduates. Perhaps if you got off your high horse and really tried to find out what graduates around the country are really feeling and what they have to constantly battle against, the folks here might start to respect you a bit more than they do at present. Not impressed!!
@Kate Spicer
Thanks for posting – as you can see your piece hit a nerve with the Graduate Fog community!
Just to explain… Although all views are welcome on Graduate Fog, there is a general consensus among our users that unpaid internships exploit those who do them and exclude those who can’t afford to do them. We also believe that unpaid internships are likely to be illegal, as anybody who fits the criteria of being a ‘worker’ must be paid the National Minimum Wage. When we say ‘intern’ we are not talking about work shadowing or making the tea. We’re talking about young workers effectively doing junior jobs that should be paid but aren’t, simply because that publication has labelled that worker an ‘intern’ (within journalism this could be a researcher, junior reporter, editorial assistant, PA to the editor). This happens either because the publication isn’t aware of the law, doesn’t care that they’re breaking the law, or doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with using unpaid interns, because they believe they’re helping them by giving them experience.
Legalities aside, most of the Graduate Fog tribe believe that unpaid internships present a huge problem for social mobility in 2011. The reality is that for various reasons internships are getting longer and longer – with less and less chance of a job at the end of them. What this means is that the only interns who can hang in for as long as is necessary in order to find paid work are those who have serious financial support from their parents. In other words, an intern who is less talented and less qualified will ‘make it’ simply because their parents are rich – whereas someone more qualified and more talented will be forced to give up because they can’t afford to work unpaid for the months (years?) that are required in order to break into industries like journalism nowadays.
While it’s admirable that you waitressed in the evenings to pay your rent while you were doing your unpaid internships, like @Robin Whitlock I question the economic reality of suggesting this as a solution to today’s struggling interns. If rent in London is £500 per month and a zones 1&2 travelcard is £100, my maths says that doesn’t leave much for bills and food etc every month. Lots of Graduate Foggers say they have had Saturday jobs and worked in bars in the evening, but even doing that isn’t enough to make ends meet.
Given all of this, I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not surprised that you are saying that you and your colleagues come into contact with so many princessy interns in your line of work (i’m not saying they don’t exist – i’m sure they do!) But I believe that is a direct result of the industry’s failure to pay their interns. If you paid them, I think you would find that your interns were from more diverse backgrounds and had a better work ethic. I am also disappointed in this piece because I fear that your readers could be left with the impression that all / most young people have this attitude towards work – which is simply inaccurate. The reality is that the system employers have created for selecting their candidates favours the princessy interns. They are blocking out the hard-working ones by not offering a salary.
So Kate, I’m genuinely interested – do you still feel that your piece was fair?
Good one Tanya! Will she respond I wonder? I watch with baited breath!
Kate – I don’t doubt. So do most of us. We’d have a lot more respect for you if you remember that you were like us once too. Not all of us think we’re entitled and think we deserve better.
And yes, I’m aware that that does make me sound exactly like the stuck-up interns you’ve no doubt encountered. I know we have a lot to learn. I don’t doubt you work and worked incredibly hard. It just frustrates me that the people we are expected to aspire to be like are constantly portrayed, or allow themselves to be portrayed, in this way.
@Tanya @Robert
Very well said, both of you. Took the words right out of my mouth!
I completely agree with the points you have covered. I feel that the least Kate Spicer could do, if she is going to follow this discussion and contribute, is to address the very valid points and issues which have been raised. Her dismissive and sarcastic comment doesn’t exactly do much to address the scale of this issue today and the corrosive, cancerous culture of “interning” which is rapidly destroying opportunities for my generation across so many industries. Thanking us for our “interest” in her piece is just a tad insulting and condescending, to be perfectly honest.
I find this all a bit hypocritical. The hystrionic opinions here against Kate Spicer are far more bitchy than anything you would find on in a newspaper environment. Calm down, everyone.
Also, I think you’re confusing the issues.
1 – unpaid internships – an age-old situation. Some people make their career from the humble internship. Some don’t.
2. The narcissism of this decade. Read the book, the Narcissism Epidemic. Learn the facts. It’s a modern phenomenon. Societal attitudes have changed so much even since Gen X were raised. This is the point of the article. Kate makes a valid point. I think some of the overreactions here are responding to the first point. Which is not the point of the article.
More power to your elbow Tanya. Like Kate Spicer, I too began as an intern only in those days, we didn’t call it that. We didn’t even call it work experience. I was invited to “observe” at my local paper for a week – a WEEK! – during my college summer holidays.
This week turned into two and I worked alongside experienced reporters. I did a lot more than observe. The editor liked to give young people interested in journalism a chance to actually do some. So I did. I loved it.
I was paid expenses for my second week but I couldn’t work any more as the union (National Union of Journalists) simply wouldn’t have allowed it. Those big bad unions eh? The ones that Thatcher and Murdoch smashed.
You’ll have no doubt heard heaps about how bad the 70s were thanks to these unions. But they made sure young people weren’t forced to work for nothing for weeks, months and even years on end before, maybe, being given a job.
I never would’ve become a journalist if I’d had to work for months on end for nothing. By limiting entrants to those who can afford to work for nothing, we also limit the way the press reports and distorts the news. Increasingly, it is written by those from a privileged class and inevitably they reflect their interests.
Keep going. Keep fighting back. Best of luck to you all.
Laura
@XX
Firstly, do you have a name?
Secondly, thanks for your reading suggestion. Times have undoubtedly changed. I would suggest that you read “Jilted Generation”. Please see-http://tinyurl.com/48maus6
Thirdly,I don’t think that the reactions to Kate Spicer’s piece and comment here are at all overblown or bitchy. People simply feel offended and outraged and are expressing that. If she (and many members of the media)feel that it is acceptable to effectively laugh at and joke about the hurdles my generation has to overcome (have a look around this site for further details on this) then we are perfectly entitled to express our disgust at this.
The point that is being made is that unpaid internships are damaging. They are destroying opportunities and effectively replacing junior roles. They are providing a socially acceptable (and legally dubious)way for greedy employers to exploit vulnerable young people. There is absolutely nothing that is acceptable about greed, exploitation and abuse.
I am on deadline today, writing some piece of similarly badly researched entertaining nonsense. I will answer this briefly.
Sadly formal apprenticeships were thin on the ground when I started out, and are even thinner on the ground now. Apprenticeships went to the very bright and/or lucky, most had done MA’s in journalism and were Oxbridge graduates. (I did neither – life’s not fair but it seems to be getting fairer from where I’m looking) And so the way I, and I presume younger people do now, acquired enough knowledge and confidence was with a series of work experience stints until I found an editorial assistants job that paid. This way, slowly, I learned however roughly how to do the job.
I came out of university in the last bad recession. My parents didn’t give me money. I did not have a huge debt round my neck from student loans as they were very small back then. I cant remember how much I waitressed, but I can remember my legs twitching with excessive tiredness at night. I also used to get drunk after work and do my work experience hungover sometimes. Thankfully I was 20/21 and had the energy. It didn’t mess me up too much. If anything I wish I had known about work experience earlier in my life, I wish I had started doing it younger. When I was writing for The Face in the nineties what struck me was all the senior writers there had been doing work exp since their teens.
I talk in the piece about people with an air of entitlement, and not ALL PEOPLE.
I was sacked from a student job in a book shop for ‘acting like the world owed me a living’, even though the dude only paid me about £2 an hour.
Behaving like a dick who thinks the world owes you a living does largely get you nowhere.
I think work experience is a good thing. Paying travel expenses would be respectful.
But I realise this is not my debate, it is yours and you are all anti unpaid work experience, so I will bow out.
Thanks for reading, even if you did hate it.
So an accumulation of I was not making some heavy duty huge comment on the state of a specific generation, I was talking about the general bustling air of entitlement that seems to be knocking about. it was not a scientific piece and it was not meant to reflect an entire generation.
Laura and Christopher have got it exactly right, what is going on in this country is a return to the elitist wealth-orientated stratification of the Victorian-era. The media is one of those areas in which it would do well for the powers that be to structure it along middle to upper class lines which reflect the policies and practices of the ruling elite. Whether by intention or otherwise, that is what is happening at the moment, whereby only those with significant amounts of money can enter the professions, whether they have a degree or not. Journalism is right up there in that respect, along with, I would imagine, the law. Such a thing is extremely damaging to society in that it reduces diversity in opinion and communication as well as creating a social divide that can only increase civil and social stress rather than encouraging a sense of unity. Unpaid internships in my view are a major cause of this process as is the constant sniping at and denigration of the more unsuccessful graduates who remain trapped in wage-slavery, struggling along on a pittance in crap jobs in call-centres and supermarkets. I notice that Kate hasn’t responded yet by the way, ha….
I’m confused Kate. How can you say you think things are getting fairer now when you admit you had no debt hanging round your neck when you left college but kids today do? And it’s about to get a great deal bigger?
I’ve been in this business for more than 30 years. It’s never been tougher for young people to break into and unpaid internships make it much harder. The last government should’ve outlawed them when it had the chance.
Unpaid internships are NOT an age-old situation. They are very new in this country – a problem much less than a decade old.
I suspect that they became a problem in journalism when the number of journalism courses sky-rocketed. According to Skillset, 9970 people graduated from journalism courses in 2009 alone. If most of these people want jobs, they will be disappointed and it makes sense that some universities actively encourage unpaid (and illegal) internships, post-graduation.
To put the numbers into perspective, there are around 30,000 members in the NUJ. Not all journalists are in the union, but most older ones are, for sure.
So not only are many interns being conned, but the industry as a whole suffers. If the wealthiest interns can survive the course longest, it makes sense that there will be some ‘princesses’ about. Not everyone will get a job in a shrinking labour market – it makes more sense that the most capable people will be the ones who score.
Journalism needs a strong union to support it, and that union needs to support interns. We’re using a legal framework for this, via the Cashback for Interns campaign. The more interns insist on their legal right to be paid, the fewer employers will run the risk of flouting that law in the first place.
For more details on making a claim:http://www.londonfreelance.org/fl/1010inte.html
Fiona O’Cleirigh, campaign organiser
@Robin Whitlock – yes she has – see above – sorry, my fault for not approving her comment instantly.
I meant to say that it makes more sense that the most capable people SHOULD be the ones who score [jobs]. A bit of a difference there, sadly.
Thanks Tanya, yes I’ve just noticed, unfortunately my computer’s running a bit slow as I’m trying to write an academic piece on marketing to deadline while also keeping a check on my email for job offers, a check on the chat on facebook about the nuclear situation in Japan and a check on this, as a result I have about ten million windows open at present. I’m just as confused as Laura actually, how Kate can say its getting easier I just can’t imagine. I’m trying to worm my way in by going freelance, and part of the reason for that is that local papers just aren’t employing journalists anymore (although the swallowing of local titles by media blocks such as Northcliffe doesn’t actually help) and the other reason being that I can’t afford either to do an internship or go and do a postgrad at Cardiff. I did have a friend back in the early 90’s who got in as a photographer at the Western Gazette in Yeovil, but that was back in the days when locals were still taking people on. I think Kate’s response merely reflects what I was saying before, that her current position prevents her from seeing things the way they really are. I’m comparably lucky actually, I got into uni in the last year before the fees went up, and so only owe around £15k. I’m also 44 and have work and life experience, but if even I can’t get a decent salaried job as a graduate with all that to my credit, what does that say about the chances of my younger graduate colleagues? It makes me fume, really does.
because twenty years ago racism and sexism were still endemic in our society. life has got a lot fairer, in a statutory sense. aside from the economy, things aren’t that bad and social mobility has increased massively. women have far higher expectations of themselves, their lives and their careers. debt is now a horrible fact of life. i don’t like the idea of paying for university, but i don’t know how else the economy is meant to pay for further education. perhaps we could all have our education sponsored by despotic regimes. oops we already do.
right i sound like a daily mail reader. i’m off. good luck getting jobs. i heartily recommend work experience and feeling a bit entitled but not behaving that way because that would be self-defeating.
@Kate Spicer
Thanks for replying. I actually believe that you know that not all young people / interns are total princesses – I just think that you are basing your own views of this subject too much on your own experiences, which are out of date (sorry, that wasn’t another botox dig I swear – my own experiences are out of date too!). I’ve found this “I did it, so it must be okay” attitude is very common, particularly among journalists. But the massive debt that today’s graduates are in – plus the growing length of these placements and the shrinking chances of them leading to paid work DO change things significantly – and it is the poorer, talented grads who are missing out – and the industry is missing out on THEM!
Hey ho, I guess we can only dare to hope that this discussion might have made you think a teensy bit differently about this subject. Oh, and perhaps you could have a word with whoever writes the contents page – is it the Sunday Times subs? Because it very clearly said:
I WANT IT ALL
Kate Spicer on the generation for whom entitlement is a birthright
..which does rather imply that this is a trait that is common to all young people, you must admit!
Sexism and racism seem pretty endemic in much of the media still. Certainly (and it’s not the same thing entirely) non-white people and middle-aged women, esp mothers, are vastly underrepresented in TV/film. Skillset are pretty hot on this.
Yes, the statutory position has moved on, but then the statutory position also says that workers should get paid, and that isn’t happening for many interns…
Kate Spicer wrote: “Twenty years ago racism and sexism were still endemic in our society. Life has got a lot fairer, in a statutory sense. Aside from the economy, things aren’t that bad and social mobility has increased massively.”
This it just not true. Did you not see the BBC programme a few weeks ago about how internships are actually making it *harder* not easier for kids from poor backgrounds to break into the professions, including journalism? Social mobilily has *decreased* massively, not increased. More than 50 per cent of journalists on national papers and national broadcasting stations went to private school; only six per cent of the population did. This matters. The media should reflect the population it serves; not a tiny proportion of it.
Perhaps that’s one resaon why sites like this are more popular among many lunchtime browsers such as myself! I am here rather than reading a national newspaper. I’m sick of the skewed view of the world they all give me.
And Robin points up a neglected issue – age. There’s all sorts of legislation around that, and yet media employers are often very ageist. The emphasis on taking on graduate interns doesn’t exactly help this. Disability is also relevant.
The requirement to work unpaid hits all the groups that have spent decades getting employment rights. If someone doesn’t think that taking on an intern counts as employment, will they observe anti-discrimination legislation? Unpaid internships open the back door to prejudice, particularly as they are often not publicly advertised.
@Laura Marcus
Without wishing to blow my own trumpet – or suggesting that i’m trying to compete with the nationals! – I agree with this 100%. I’ve been pitching a brilliant report on internships to several newspapers recently and guess what? No-one wants to know! At first I thought i was being paranoid but now I’m not so sure… This is a HUGE issue that readers want to know about. Given that, the coverage in the mainstream media has been utterly pathetic…
I was thinking the other day… Thank GOD for the Internet. If we think campaigning for this issue is tough now (which it is!), just imagine if being published by one of the media ‘gatekeepers’ was the ONLY way to reach people and gain exposure / discussion for this problem! Pretty terrifying, isn’t it?
Thank you for Fiona for supporting me on that point. Absolutely its the case that the media tends to prefer ‘beautiful people’ who are savvy, good-looking, dress in the right clothes, have the right attitudes, watch the right tv etc ad nauseum. Did anyone see the recent “Beauty and the Beast” series? Absolutely classic expose on how we have entered an age of ‘beauty facism’. And also although Kate attempts to make an important point concerning racism and sexism, I’m not exactly sure such equality is as prevalent as she likes to imagine, but more to the point, any gains made on the basis of race or sex have been countered by issues of class, it’s still an issue that some of the poorest communities in the country are those with high ethnic minority populations and that is without all the other issues that increased class consciousness in the media raises. As Laura says, interships are making things worse, not better. I would also draw everyone’s attention to the programme presented by Andrew Neil some time ago, about a month ago I think, which exposed the degree to which social mobility is declining with regard to entry into politics. Well thats certainly also true for journalism, which I’m sure at some point was implicit in that same programme.
Tanya, you may be interested in how I found your site… that programme on the BBC a few weeks ago which featured unpaid interns in a PR company in London that I mention upthread, well, I found a link to your site after a piece appeared about it on the PR Week website.
The papers tend to close ranks on issues like this. See also the whole NotW phone hacking scandal. Few will touch it. But fewer and fewer people are buying the papers. And that’s one way to fight back. Make them increasingly irrelevant.
The Sunday Times, on which Ms Spicer works, has a paywall. I haven’t read it since then and nor have many others. I’ll read it. But I won’t pay for it. After all, they don’t pay their interns so why should I pay them?
Hi Tanya,
Great Blog as per usual! Social mobility isn’t improving! Kate fails to say how many internships she did whilst working at he same time but in many industries you have to have interned for a year before even being considered for a full time post. I really am disappointed with the graduate bashing going in the media, and lack of solidarity with those who went through the last recession.
Kate states that she had a very small loan and hardly any debt well that isn’t the same for 2010 graduate who on average has over 2010. She also says that
Speaking as a 40-something, I can relate to everything Robin is saying. I am beautiful, savvy, good-looking and I most certainly have the right attitudes. Somehow I can tell from Robin’s posts that Robin shares these traits. We’re good eggs.
To be honest, I think that the chief virtue of the very young, in the eyes of employers, is that they’re more likely to believe what they’re told. Namely, that there’s nothing wrong with working for nothing. The good news is that this isn’t true across the board. There are some incredibly articulate, talented and, quite frankly, angry young people about and it’s a pleasure to meet them.
Heh, heh thanks Fiona, yes I agree, I am myself good looking and savvy, its just the media doesn’t seem to see it that way. Never mind, their loss, and as it happens I’m slowly developing quite a good reputation through freelancing anyway. I think the thing is just to keep on battering the castle gate….
As regards the young people you mention – impassioned, angry, talented, articulate, absolutely. People need to get angry and to articulate the unfairness of whats going on at the moment, so I’m with you on that one also.
kate Spicer said
“Obviously I got in by being an unpaid intern.
Everyone did.
And I worked as a waitress in the evening to pay my rent
Thanks for your interest
Kate Spicer”
Many unpaid internships are in London and being a waitress or having another part-time job in London in order to do internship would not pay enough for anyone to pay rent and bills, many graduates would not be able to afford it so it excludes many graduates.
“I WANT IT ALL
Kate Spicer on the generation for whom entitlement is a birthright” This implies that it is all young people that are like that when that is not the case, misleading articles like this that generalize a generation of people without proper research is poorly written and can’t be taken seriously at all.
Unpaid Internships are slave labour. Any company using them should be prosecuted. They should in no way be tolerated.