ENOUGH TALK – NOW IT’S TIME FOR ACTION, SAYS GRADUATE FOG
Are you frustrated that for all the talk – and press coverage – about unpaid internships, very little seems to be happening to stamp out the practice? Today, Graduate Fog is taking part in the Guardian’s live online Q&A “What should be done about internships?”
The debate will run from 1-4pm – and promises some heated discussion about this emotive problem. Clearly, much excellent work has been done in the last year or so in raising awareness on this issue – particularly by Intern Aware, Internocracy, Interns Anonymous and the NUS. But there is also frustration that despite all our efforts, not much seems to have changed – and hundreds of thousands of graduates’ attempts to get their careers started are still being thwarted by this corrosive practice. So what’s next? Here is what I think needs to happen now:
1) THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO CLARIFY THAT UNPAID INTERNSHIPS ARE ILLEGAL. While we on Graduate Fog are pretty clear on the law when it comes to internships, the fact remains that many employers — and the general public — are not. Although a bunch of us are doing our best to raise awareness, it is not fair that the responsibility is falling to ten (?) of us to educate the entire nation on this. Where is the support from Government? So far I think our politicians have actually done more harm than good in this respect — and that the ‘Clegg-up’ furore at Easter had been a disaster for interns. (Remember how Nick Clegg’s attempt to raise the issue of internship was blown off-course when David Cameron undermined him by saying he was ‘relaxed’ about internships — and then the press discovered that Clegg himself had done an unpaid internship?) Although the press seem obsessed with nepotism — and this ‘sharp-elbowed parents’ idea — most of Graduate Fog’s users actually see nepotism as a secondary issue to that of PAY. The Government must do more to clarify the fact that it is never okay to use unpaid workers — of any age, and at any stage in their career.
2) THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE LAW NEEDS TO BE ENFORCED FOR INTERNS We already have a law to protect most interns — the problem is that it’s not being enforced. There is no point in having the National Minimum Wage law unless we are prepared to enforce it. There is no point in being proud of it unless we are prepared to enforce it. The reporting system must be overhauled, to make it easier and more appealing for anybody (not just interns who have been exploited) to report unpaid internships. The current system is fatally flawed as it places too heavy a burden on the intern (Why would you report someone you’re trying to impress?). The authorities must get tough with companies who ignore the NMW laws when it comes to interns. They need to start imposing formal warnings, fines and prosecutions.
3) BUSINESS NEEDS TO MAN UP. Are any big companies willing to condemn publicly the practice of exploiting the vast army of young, unpaid workers we’ve come to call “interns”? Because I haven’t heard about them. A show of support from business is long overdue and would be an easy public relations win among the nation’s young. At present, interns are stuck and desperately need help. The law seems to be on their side, but their position is too weak to allow them to claim their rights (you try demanding pay while trying to impress a newspaper editor or advertising boss). We need Britain’s chief executives and entrepreneurs to take the lead on this, set an example and do what’s right. Can they show that British business is great enough to treat its young workers fairly?
4) UNIVERSITY CAREERS SERVICES NEED TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT THE FACTS ON INTERNSHIPS. Stats from Internocracy show that only 10% of graduates know that unpaid internships are illegal – and frankly, that’s just not good enough. Not only is the message not getting through to students and graduates, but many universities are confusing things further by actually promoting unpaid internships to their students, despite the fact that they are illegal. This needs to stop. The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) has officially condemned the practice. Now their members need to get their act together and make sure that they are doing everything they can to arm their customers with the most up-to-date and useful information about the facts on internships. They should certainly not be doing anything to make the problem worse.
*Has the anti-internships movement stalled?
What do you think needs to happen next? Do you have any bright ideas about how we can put more pressure on those in power to create real, lasting change to help get a fairer deal for interns?
Your calls to end unpaid internships are flawed. Firstly what do you think is going to happen when this is enforced in the creative, fashion and arts sectors? Do your really think that once many companies HAVE to pay interns they will? No they will cut back on internships meaning that there are fewer internships for all. And who will get these internships?…. the directors family friends and only the very very best meaning in fact more and more students are being squeezed out of opportunity. Why should a company have to pay someone who will add little/no value to its future? Me myself did 2 unpaid internships at university and yes it was tough but i got 2 of the best graduate jobs upon leaving. Its tough but resiliance is something lacking in many. (I am also from a working class background with no financial support) i did it took it, on the chin and made the best out of it. The cynicism within the UK is frightening and you wonder why foreign students are flocking to gain experience in this country?
I agree with Leo completely. Whilst the cause is noble, the course of action set out above is potentially lethal for the very people Graduate Fog protects, us graduates. There are no easy answers or quick solutions here.
Nevertheless Tanya, keep up the fantastic work!
How well I remember those very same arguments popping up before the Minimum Wage Act came into law 10 years ago – they proved as fallacious then as they are now!
Companies don’t take on interns as some kind of charitable exercise – haven’t you ever read any adverts for interns?! Companies use interns as workers – that work doesn’t just disappear because companies are told they must follow the law and pay for the people they hire to do that work.
If the Minimum Wage laws are enforced we will go back to those far off days where companies recruited young people, invested in them, cherished them and then reaped the reward for their investment. It worked then, it worked twenty years ago, thirty, forty, fifty…it worked all the time until the very first unpaid intern was taken on and used as an illegal unpaid worker.
The only difference will be that, if companies are forced to adhere to the law, these “interns” will be called “trainees” – used, paid and learning on the job in that old fashioned legal, decent, truthful and honest way.
Speaking as someone who has campaigned on this issue longer than anyone else on the block, I believe there is only one answer to your question Tanya.
In order to achieve any real change, HMRC and BIS have to put under more continuing, sustained pressure to enforce the law which already exists to protect unpaid interns/workers. HMRC has delayed, stalled, tarried and fumbled around with this issue for far too long. They have made unfulfilled promises of action for years, committed to providing sector specific advice and failed to provide it, talked about enforcement and not provided the means to achiweve it. They clearly do not have the resources – and correspondingly do not have the will – to do anything substantive about this situation unless they are bullied into it.
The only way to get anything done is to continue to shout, scream and point at the iniquity that the minimum wage is only a right for those who are not young. That means that these campaigning sies have to keep raising the issue as widely as possible and – specifically – that everyone should write to the Low Pay Commission to point out that people care about this and that something must be done.
This year, as the do every year, the Commission is inviting people to write to them about the Minimum Wage and how it is applied. The LPC has a real influence on those in power, its recommendations go to the heart of government and pressure via that route is the best way of achieving anything.
Their email address is lpc@lowpay.gov.uk. Write to them before 16th September and tell them about your experiences and why you believe interns should be paid. If all these campaigning groups like Graduate Fog keep up the pressure in this way, things will change – eventually!
Congratulations to Mark Watson for suggesting an easy and practical way for us to curb the numbers of unpaid internships.
I have had 3 unpaid internship interviews in a row where I have learned that if I got the placement, I would be taking over from a paid member of staff whilst they were away.
It makes me angry that even if some companies can afford to pay graduates, they opt for an unpaid internship instead. This and the fact that entry level jobs seemed to have disappeared, to be replaced with unpaid internships.
Working for nothing would be a huge financial strain but I don’t see what choice I have, nobody is willing to give me payed employment.
I can’t see a simple solution to the internship problem. Companies are going to exploit the system in a bid to save money, whatever the government tries. They are merely utilising to the national sentiment that young people are untrustworthy, unreliable and unworthy in their justification for not paying graduates.
Write to them before 16th September and tell them about your experiences and why you believe interns should be paid.
The reason “Mark Watson” is so keen to get people to write to the Low Pay Commission is because they no longer pay any attention to him, now they know he is a fictitious character.
Until recently they accepted his lengthy submissions in good faith, believing that he was actually a real person and were left looking rather foolish when they were informed that they had quoted from an invented persona in their reports!
Hilariously, “Mark Watson’s” submissions talk approvingly of another activist called “Pat Duggan” who happens also to be an invented persona from similarly dark corners of the same man’s mind. On some blogs, “Mark Watson” and “Pat Duggan” even get into conversations with each other in the comments section.
“The growing voice against unpaid internships”? The phrase ‘you don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’ springs to mind…
Either that or someone trying to create an eye-catching
astroturfgrassroots campaign to climb the greasy pole of Labour party politics. Beats taking an unpaid internship working for an MP.