NEW EVIDENCE FORCES CHAIN TO BREAK THEIR SILENCE OVER POLICY ON INTERNSHIPS
River Island has been forced to respond to our questions about their policy on internships after a former intern posted a diary of an internship with the retailer on a blog — and confirmed that the placement was unpaid. When challenged by Graduate Fog, River Island did not deny that they run unpaid placements involving real work – and instead tried to excuse their actions, saying: “We often get feedback that by choosing to complete work experience with us it gives people a good insight into the fashion industry and a valuable experience on their CVs.”
When Graduate Fog originally contacted River Island in September as part of our Pay Your Interns campaign, we faced a wall of silence. A press officer told us the retail chain “does not want to disclose” any information about its use of interns “as we are a privately owned company.” She also asked us to remove the campany’s name from our website — but we ignored this request.
At the time, we had found an old Facebook advert for internship within River Island — but there was nothing to suggest it was unpaid. We also found a blog post from a former intern — which appeared to describe an internship involving real work, rather than work shadowing — but again it was unclear whether this was paid or unpaid.
However, we have now had confirmation from that former intern that this placement was unpaid, raising serious questions about how River Island feel this internship fits with the National Minimum Wage law, which states that anybody doing proper work with set hours and responsibilities must be paid at least the NMW (£6.08 for over 21s). The former intern wrote on the blog fashion+messiah:
RiverIslandas you may know it is much bigger that the average store you walk into daily. Spending a week in the press office in west end has killed my fears of the busy life of fashion. There is nothing exciting than doing the things you love without a degree (lol) you can laugh with me to that but it is a privilege I don’t take for granted.
My day starts by 9;30 AM in the river island press office. To get the day rolling, I have to looking through the daily press and pluck out anycoverage/featureRiverIslandhas in those papers. Then I get my self ready to be bombarded by magazines and newspapers that can’t wait for opening hours to demand the samples they would love to feature in their publication.
Thought out the day, I am sent out to look for specific cloths publications are interested in featuring. Towards the end of the day I and the team I work with have to do returns which involves returning the cloths back to the stores.
When asked by us “Did you get paid to do the internship?” the intern replied “It was an unpaid internship.” Given the emergence of this new information, we felt we had good reason to write back to River Island and demand a more thorough response than they had provided us with the first time. This is what happened:
To: River Island
From: Graduate Fog
Date: 24 October 2011Hello [name removed by Graduate Fog],
We were in touch a few weeks ago regarding River Island’s policy on internships, which you said you would prefer not to comment on, as River Island is a privately owned company.
However, since we were in contact, I have come across a post on a blog called “fashion+messiah” which appears to be written by a former intern at River Island, who says:
RiverIslandas you may know it is much bigger that the average store you walk into daily. Spending a week in the press office in west end has killed my fears of the busy life of fashion. There is nothing exciting than doing the things you love without a degree (lol) you can laugh with me to that but it is a privilege I don’t take for granted.
My day starts by 9;30 AM in the river island press office. To get the day rolling, I have to looking through the daily press and pluck out anycoverage/featureRiverIslandhas in those papers. Then I get my self ready to be bombarded by magazines and newspapers that can’t wait for opening hours to demand the samples they would love to feature in their publication.
Thought out the day, I am sent out to look for specific cloths publications are interested in featuring. Towards the end of the day I and the team I work with have to do returns which involves returning the cloths back to the stores.
From this, it appears that this intern has set hours (“My day starts by 9.30am”). It also appears that her duties during the day constitute real work, rather than just work shadowing. It also appears that the internship lasts longer than a week, as she later mentions that her “second week” is about to start.
You can see the post here: http://fashion333.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/river-island-internship/#comment-53
As you will see from the comments below the post, when we asked whether this internship was paid or unpaid, the intern clearly says it is unpaid.
We would like to ask for a response to this from River Island. Clearly, we have no way of checking the facts of this person’s account — do you dispute them? If you do not dispute them, can you explain how River Island feels that unpaid internships like this fit with the National Minimum Wage law (which says that anybody who fits the criteria of a “worker” must be paid at least £6.08 per hour if they are 21 or above)?
We intend to blog about this in the next few days, so would be grateful for a swift response from River Island. As before, you are of course within your rights not to comment. However, I should warn you that silence from your end would allow our readers to draw their own conclusions, which are unlikely to be favourable to your brand.Regards,
The River Island contact passed it on to a colleague in the marketing department, who responded:
To: Graduate Fog
From: River Island
Date: 26 October 2011We offer work experience within our press department to applicants who wish to gain an understanding and experience of what it is like to work within the fashion pr industry. This is unpaid and for a limited period of time only, normally 2 weeks. All travel expenses are covered. Our work experience is open to graduates and non-graduates. We also run various graduate placement programmes which are paid and vary from 6 months to a year. We receive a large number of applicants for our work experience programme, we keep the length of time short to give as many people as possible the chance to experience our press office and to ensure we do not have unpaid staff for long periods of time. We often get feedback that by choosing to complete work experience with us it gives people a good insight into the fashion industry and a valuable experience on their cvs.
Kind Regards,
We noticed that the spokesperson did not dispute the description of the placement in the blog post. So we wrote back:
To: River Island
From: Graduate Fog
Date: 26 October 2011Thank you for your response. However we have some concerns about its content.
You say that you try to keep internships short (less than two weeks) within the River Island press office. However, as we understand the NMW law, the length of the placement is irrelevant.
There is no legal definition of an ‘intern’ but the legislation states that anybody who fits the criteria of being a ‘worker’ (with set hours and responsibilities, not free to come and go as they please, not just work shadowing and not doing is as part of their course) must be paid at least the NMW for their work (£6.08 for over 21s, since 1 October).
All employers must pay this and an intern cannot waive their right to these wages, even if they say they are prepared to work for free in order to gain experience. Reimbursing travel expenses is not sufficient. An intern’s right to be paid for their work remains the same whether their internship lasts one day or one year.
If you are concerned that your current policy on using unpaid interns may not fit with the National Minimum Wage law, are you prepared to review it now that we have brought it to your attention?
I look forward to your response,
We have not heard anything since then.
*What do you make of River Island’s response?
Does it matter that their placements are only two weeks’ long – or is it the principle that matters? What do you think of the chain’s argument that a River Island internship “gives people a good insight into the fashion industry and a valuable experience on their cvs”?
Dear Lord the writing on the blog is terrible. I’d hope that River Island would at least employ a literate intern to exploit.
Rant over…
Chance of actually getting them to revise their policy rather than weaselling out of it = 1%
Chance that reporting them to any appropriate governmental body in order to actually get NMW law enforced = 1%
My level of frustration over the fact that exploitative employers cannot be legally cowed in to complying with the law = 100%
ARGH!
Needless to say “Chance that reporting them to any appropriate governmental body in order to actually get NMW law enforced = 1%”
should read “Chance that reporting them to any appropriate governmental body in order to actually get NMW law enforced will actually achieve results = 1%
By marketing aggressively to key demographics through Facebook, Twitter, Web 2.0 Social Media Networks etc the fact that River Island are recruiting staff as Interns, the likelihood that recipients will alter their consumption patterns….. probably about 60-80%.
Likelihood that River Island will modify their recruitment patterns to offer Salaried Work once they are aware of such a marketing policy…. probably 100%.
Just to continue with the pointlessly contrived statistics/probabilities:
Number of people who give a flying fig about unpaid internships – 5% (and this doesn’t even include the interns, half the time)
Of that 5%, the number of people who feel sufficiently aggrieved that they’re willing to outright boycott River Island (and would otherwise have shopped there) – 10% (optimistically)
Overall proportion of people who might actually engage in a boycott – 0.5%
—
Ultimately, I think you’re far too optimistic about the impact that raising awareness of unpaid internships is. I’ve campaigned on this issue for 2 years and I can assure you that very little has changed. If anything, some things have gotten worse.
That’s not to say we should give up outright, just that we should have reasonable expectations as to how effective any particular campaign, especially one which relies on consumers’ lack of apathy. Most people simply don’t care enough to create pressure. They will continue to brush us off with glib and shallow statements written by their PR dept.
I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about the prospects of change Gareth. Already there are some moves towards enforcing payments to interns, albeit not very large.
It is the pressure of opinion that has made at least that small difference however, so campaigning is always worthwhile.
Oh don’t get me wrong Louise, I’m all for continuing to campaign – the chance of anything changing would be nil otherwise – I just think we need to keep our expectations appropriately set at the moment.
The way I see it, to relate back to my first post – few companies who currently use unpaid interns are going to acquiesce quietly. They will umm-and-aww and weasel their way out of it.
Which leaves us with directly applying pressure through commercial (boycotting) or legal means. Given the majority’s apathy, that leaves us with the legal route.
It’s essential that people like Tanya continue to vocally draw the attention of policy-makers, and the law, to this matter, because it’s only by their intervention (which they should be doing already) that this will be adequately resolved.
We need to focus our efforts on eliciting political support, not ineffectually seeking to ‘spread the word’ to the masses in the hopes that everyone will selflessly boycott a business. Because (for the most part) they won’t.
Gareth,
its been said before. Wasn’t listened to. Her website, her rules.
Yes, agreed Gareth, and I think everyone who has strong views on this subject has a part to play. Pressurising the politicians and the law enforcers is the way to go.
Unfortunately, thinking about the issue for over two years isn’t part of campaigning on the issue. Activism is.
“Unfortunately, thinking about the issue for over two years isn’t part of campaigning on the issue. Activism is.”
Which part of my posts implied that my involvement has been constrained to ‘thinking about the issue’?
Have you interned unpaid for River Island? Or for any other well-known brand? Fancy some free money?
Check out Interns Fight for Justice – the new campaign from Graduate Fog and Intern Aware. We are looking for interns who are feeling brave / angry / skint enough to challenge their former employers and request the wages they are owed for the work they did unpaid.
Even if your internship was a while ago and you agreed to work unpaid at the time, that doesn’t matter. The minimum wage works out at around £1,000 a month, so depending on the length of your internship you could be in line to receive a tidy sum!
Just get in touch with us for more information:
https://graduatefog.co.uk/2012/2080/interns-fight-justice-campaign/
Thanks!
Graduate Fog x
PS. None of this will cost you a penny!