AND CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL INTERNSHIPS THREATENS SMALL LABELS, SHE COMPLAINS
A fashion designer has angered graduates by appearing to suggest that fashion interns should work for the “love,” not money. She claimed it was difficult for the fashion industry to understand the outcry about its use of unpaid interns, as to them the practice seems “very, very normal.”
Speaking to Elle magazine’s website, Cozette McCreery — one of three UK designers behind award-winning knitwear brands SIBLING and SISTER by SIBLING, whose fans include Jessie J, Noel Fielding and Patrick Wolf — complained that small labels like hers face collapse “if there were a compulsory minimum wage.” (IF!)
Defending her views, she said: “We need the workforce.”
Here is our critique of some of her other scarily warped views about why the crackdown on those who exploit their interns is deeply unfair…
Cozette McCreery: “Everybody should be paid for their time, whether they’re stacking shelves at a supermarket or working for a big-name designer.”
Graduate Fog: Hey, you’re talking sense on this subject, Cozette. Are you sure you’re a proper fashion designer?
“Their time is important and their input into the workings and production of a collection is really vital.”
Oop, you seem to have slipped up there. Did you just admit that fashion interns do real work?
“It’s a difficult one though, because the other thing is that any of us who have worked in the fashion industry have come through this route, so it seems very, very normal.”
Er, it’s not really that difficult, is it Cozette? And just because your view of what is ‘normal’ has been warped by your own experiences, that doesn’t make it right to exploit others. Or legal.
“Most people who are starting out in the industry just don’t have the funds. It’s just done with love, and that’s it. When the main designers aren’t getting paid-if you can’t find money to pay yourself-it’s really difficult to find money to pay others.”
Cozette, when you’re starting your own business, you pay other people before you pay yourself — not after. You can invest all the unpaid work you like in your own company — just don’t expect others to do the same. You will reap the rewards if / when your company becomes successful in the future. They won’t.
“Internships are still seen as getting your foot in the door.”
No s**t, Sherlock. But do they actually lead to paid jobs anymore, or are they now just a handy way for people like you to get something for nothing, effectively lining your own pockets?
“So even though you might not be getting a regular wage, it’s almost like you do the time, and then you make the most of your short time that’s spent there, and in the end, quite often, what happens is that the company really wants you to stay and takes measures to actually keep you.”
Yeah we know — to do yet more unpaid work for them…
“We normally have just a couple of interns, but we bring on more in the run-up to LFW. We have interns who we’ve had since they were doing foundation courses coming back to help on certain things-we can’t be that bad.”
We think you mean, “They can’t have many other options,” because your whole industry behaves just as disgracefully.
“I don’t want it to be seen as an excuse for people to not get paid but…”
Uh-oh — we don’t like where you’re going with this, Cozette…
“…but you learn a vast amount at internships that you just don’t learn at college.”
True…
“Just people making tea is a godsend when you’re in a really busy studio.”
Are you for real? We thought you just said you learn lots of useful stuff during internships. Now you’re talking about making the tea. Make your mind up, Cozette.
“You arrive, and you’re given specific jobs.”
HMRC, are you getting this?
“You get to learn how studios work and what you can bring to that environment, which is invaluable.”
Your interns could do that just work shadowing — we wouldn’t have any problem with that. It’s the fact you get them to do lots of dogsbody work while they’re there that we object to…
“And we do help. If we can help interns with re-looking at their portfolios or helping them with CVs or giving them references, of course we do that.”
*Slow hand clap* You look at their portfolios and CV and offer them a reference? Wow, that’s so kind of you to spare the time, Cozette. Especially after these interns have given you weeks (months?) of their time for absolutely nothing.
“Payment is normally worked out on a project basis.”
So you do pay your interns? We’re confused. Or do mean you sometimes give them lunch money, and other times you don’t?
“If there were a compulsory minimum wage…”
There IS A compulsory minimum wage, Cozette!!! It’s £6.08 per hour (for those over 21).
“…we would seriously have to restructure our company.”
Well then we suggest you crack on with doing just that, if you intend to staying on the right side of the law.
“We need the workforce.”
Diddums. Your interns need to eat!
“It would be great if the government could think of some incentive to actually say that there’s a way of helping to fund it.”
WTF? The Govenment (ie the taxpayer) should pay money so that you can have unpaid workers to help you build your business, so that you can make lots of money in the future? Run that one past us again Cozette?
“None of us want to be in a position where we don’t want to pay people-we don’t all sit here on moneybags, going ‘Ha ha ha, we don’t have to pay you.'”
Your personal finances aren’t our problem, Cozette. If your business doesn’t make enough money for you to able to pay your staff, it’s not a proper business. Sorry, does the truth hurt?
“But that’s taken from a very small company’s point of view. I don’t know how it would feel if you were a major designer, but then again, they must have people queuing up to work with them.”
The last time we checked, the national minimum wage law was pretty rigid. The number of people desperate enough to offer to work for less than the minimum wage doesn’t actually change whether hiring them is legal or not. Unless you know something we don’t?
“Their first step in filtering people out is the idea that if someone wants this enough, they will be willing to do this for free, which is really a pretty despicable attitude when taken at face value.”
That viewpoint is despicable at face value only? No, it’s despicable, full stop. We feel sick.
“But then again, it’s become a traditional thing in fashion so to us feels very appropriate.”
*Graduate Fog barfs* Let us get this straight, Cozette. You’re saying that because in your teeny, tiny brain, having unpaid interns seems like an entirely okay way to run your business, the hundreds of thousands of young people who are standing up to you are in fact wrong to complain about it? And HMRC are wrong to crack down on it?
We understand that a lot of young people want to work in the fashion industry. But if they end up spouting rubbish like this in a few years’ time, we will consider it a tragedy. Cozette, you sound absolutely insane. If it’s not making enough money for you to pay your staff, you need a new business model. It is not your interns’ responsibility to prop up your company. And it is not young people’s responsibility to prop up your entire industry.
*DO YOU SYMPATHISE WITH COZETTE?
Do you care if small fashion labels like hers go bust – or do they not deserve to exist in the first place, if they can’t pay their staff? Will the fashion industry collapse without unpaid interns? Or should designers simply look for new ways to fund their labels?
Completely agree with all your points. If you can’t afford to pay all the staff you need, you don’t have a working business model.
It’s people that think like this that make the whole unpaid internship circle a problem that will be extremely hard to break. By supporting it and having unpaid internships you are excluding it to people that only live in London [most fashion houses operate in the capital] and those with the money to survive on no income, i.e spending money to work for them. I think it’s disgraceful. I graduated this year with a 1st in fashion knitwear design and am still looking for a job, I have been offered unpaid internships at companies that would look incredible on my CV to future employers but I do not live in London and will not sell myself short after working so hard at University.
Im so glad the government and Graduate Fog are doing something to address this massive issue that everyone just seems to accept as industry practice.
http://www.adeleparker.co.uk
A business model built on unpaid labour is not a business model. End.
I’m wondering if this woman is crazy or just incredibly naive. Adele, I really respect your decision; not too many of our peers are as secure with themselves as you are.
Why does Cozette think that we owe her anything? I wanted to scream at my computer while reading about how much she needs interns for her business to survive, but thinks paying them isn’t essential. It’s a bit insulting to think that the reason why her fashion label is advancing is off the backs of unpaid slaves. So with her army of interns, she is able to produce and get her name out there. But there is no benefit to the interns themselves, since their names aren’t the ones behind the fashion label; it’s hers. If she can’t keep up with the demand of fashion week, then she doesn’t need to be in it. When she becomes a multi-millionaire because she was able to produce unique ideas, the growing list of interns will become obsolete. Does she plan on hiring all of her interns if she becomes a household name like Topshop?
It would be one thing if she took on a few unpaid partners who would own a share of the company and helped build it with her. They would accept the risk because the potential payout and notoriety would be worth it. But to take on a bunch of people unpaid and then throw them out like trash is disrespectful, rude, and illegal. If you can’t keep up with the demand, then don’t produce as much. Clearly she has enough business to generate a fair amount of demand.
P.S. I really don’t think the world would suffer if this woman were put out of business… it’s not like we need her fashion designs. Whatever happened to the rounded fashion designer who designer, cut, and sewed to survive? Fashion designers are a joke nowadays anyhow. They make some drawings and expect other people to put them together whether it’s unpaid interns or laborers in China.
How does Ms McCreery think that perpetuating this vicious cycle (she worked for free, so others should, too) is going to help the fashion industry be seen as anything other than an exploitative, capitalist and elitist force? She is not only damaging herself and her own brands with ignorant and naïve comments such as these, but the whole industry also. People will read this and assume that everyone thinks and behaves the same way. She should be ashamed of this attitude.
Cheers for the heads up – a label to avoid at all costs. (Costs seemingly paid in this woman’s business model by either by desperate & exploited people, or trust fund brats who can afford to work for CV glamour alone.)
Whatever happened to small business owners investing their own capital, applying for grants, and seeking investors to finance their own business? It’s not easy and it’s not cheap to start your own company, you shouldn’t except complete strangers who gain nothing from working for you (especially if your business fails) to keep you afloat.
Tom W – right on.
Thanks Eva, alot of others I know have undertaken unpaid internships and I’m just left wondering how do they get themselves out of that rut once they’ve entered into it. If companies thought about it from the graduates point of view maybe things would change and they would be able to hire the best graduates for the jobs, not just ‘trust fund brats who can afford to work for CV glamour alone.’ -Hildegard.
It promotes that you aren’t worth anything for your labour and people will take advantage. It’s the interns that put up with it that make it worse too. I’ve heard shocking stories about Alexander McQueen and Julian McDonald and I just think why the HELL hasn’t the entire intern walk force just screamed F*CK YOU! and walked away???
I’ve attached a picture which summarises my feelings for Cozette’s situation…
http://dobrochan.ru/src/png/0907/bawww.png
A quotation that I noted down a long time ago has stuck with me since – Although I can’t remember the article it came from. I do not claim these words as my own – but they do a very good job of summarising my view on the matters above:
There is a cost to doing business in this country. Those costs include payment of taxes, the cost of compliance with regulations and obeying labour laws including the NMW. There may be companies who do not want to have to pay for these things but that does not mean that the employment law of this country does not apply.
Ultimately, a business that cannot afford to pay its staff is not a proper business. Only a tyrant or a fool would argue otherwise.
P.s. Cozette: Love doesn’t pay the bills…
Newsflash – Cozette has just tweeted this (from @WEARESIBLING)
Thoughts?
I agree Cozette was talking about herself when she talked about doing it for “love” but didn’t the rest of the piece imply that her interns should do the same?
Tanya, that’s exactly what I got from the article. I read the whole thing again on Elle, and there was no misinterpretation… saying that interns should work for free because they “love” fashion couldn’t be any clearer. There were some pretty “pro unpaid slave labor” comments, even from current unpaid interns. I guess I can’t judge them too bad, since I once believed that doing unpaid labor was worth it in the end. It wasn’t worth it, I work in something completely unrelated to the unpaid internships I did in the arts.
@Adele: I agree, if all the interns said F*** U designers, then they would have to change policy after losing the majority of their workforce; interns are after all the “engine” of the fashion label.
P.S. I think part of the reason why this abusive cycle continues is because those who “made it”, started their careers with unpaid salve labor. They seem to think that this practice is not only right, but ESSENTIAL to get your foot in the door.
V interesting piece – and great comments too.
But what I’d like to know is how Cozette managed to build a label, or get into the position of needing interns. Is she especially talented, or well-connected? What would stop other fashion grads or designers from being as successful as her?
I’m genuinely interested in how the industry works. Could someone fresh out of college be as successful or in demand, or do they have to work for someone else first? Is it a scale thing – that you have to be able to churn out quantity at rock-bottom prices (and therefore feel justified in taking on unpaid labour = no better than sweatshops imo), or can you make a name and business for yourself by being original, creative, or whatever? It seems to me that a lot of people are pissed off that they feel they have to do unpaid internships, but is that really the case? Can you not strike out on your own? What sort of barriers would there be to that?
For the record, I think there is something seriously wrong with an industry – any industry – that first gets its recruits to pay £££ through the nose for qualifications, then expects them to work for free to gain the experience. That’s why I was wondering whether there was, in fact, this expectation, or whether it would be possible to bypass the unpaid internship stage.
Looking forward to your views!
Clare
“AND CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL INTERNSHIPS THREATENS SMALL LABELS, SHE COMPLAINS”
Poor thing…. so, rather than focus on developing a Business Plan, and negotiating business finance from the bank, any erstwhile Sweat Shop owner is simply imploring that candidates work for free – perhaps supported by the Bank of Mam and Dad?
It is one thing for a True Artisan (such as Vincent Van Gough, Tolouse Le Trec, Michaelangelo etc) to work for love, and any individual can work for love doing whatever they want, but it is an entirely separate issue where, in developing a business, the owner invokes a “Slave Based Working Culture”.
Didn’t the Nazis suggest “Arbeit Macht Frei”.. Work Will Set You Free.
Lovely example of Godwin’s law there, Eowyn…
Sadly here in the USA these type of views are very common beyond the fashion industry. Ive been an unpaid intern as a graduate for a top notch pr company and staff used to say the same type things in front of us interns all the time. Including such gems as “You dont deserve pay because the work you do to help the company could be done by anyone” and “its career developement- you should just be gratefull for the chance to help the company so that some day with enough experience after several years of internships you might learn enough to deserve the chance to earn the minimum wage.”
Liza, I don’t believe comparing American intern culture with English intern culture is an accurate comparison.
I believe from my reading there are two key differences (though please correct me if I’m wrong):
1) Internships are clearly defined under law and form your vocational credit for college courses; Interns are by law not entitled to pay (and whether this is moral or not is irrelevant; it’s the law).
1a) This contrasts with the UK, where there is no “intern” under law – Just worker or not worker – and the vast majority of interns will be fulfilling a worker role, which by law must be paid…
2) The USA has no provision for National Minimum Wage – so there cannot be implied contracts of employment – because the USA has a greater degree of freedom of contract than the UK (which is more protectionist – In principle!)
2a) The UK does have National Minimum Wage which is a legal obligation; and anyone defined as a worker, interns included, is entitled to it.
Have I got my facts wrong here? Because I believe those two points are pretty fundamental differences which is why there is such a prevalence of unpaid internship culture in America…
Craig,
Didn’t you hear about those two unpaid interns in the US who worked on the set of Black Swan and they sued? Slavery was abolished in the US in the 1860s. The problem in the US (and in Canada), is that we haven’t had any sort of campaign. Interns are too afraid to speak up for fear of being blacklisted. There was an article recently in the Globe and Mail (major newspaper in Toronto) that was talking about illegal unpaid internships. The problem is that it’s not enforced as much here.
So in answer to your questions, you are wrong. Interns may be more loosely defined here, but an unpaid internship for a graduate is just as illegal in the US and Canada as they are in the UK. The only exception is:
“an individual who performs work under a program approved by a college of applied arts and technology or a university.”
In Canada, unpaid interns are encouraged to contact the Ministry of Labour.
By the way, here is one provision of note:
4. The individual does not displace employees of the person providing the training.
So internships that require the intern to sew clothes used for fashion week, write press releases that will be sent out to media outlets, do clothing runs, run social media sites for a political campaign, fetch coffee, clean the office kitchen, etc. these can be (and should be) done by an assistant.
Also another provision states that the employer is not allowed to benefit from it. Liza it sounds like the place you work at views unpaid internships as a privilege for the intern. And if “you should just be gratefull for the chance to help the company so that some day with enough experience after several years of internships you might learn enough to deserve the chance to earn the minimum wage.”, then why don’t they up their standards and be more selective? Or better yet do the work themselves.
Maybe we should start a naming and shaming campaign in the US Liza. I interned with a Minnesota Congressman who was willing to pay $20,000 for a speaker but not his interns minimum wage.
We actually covered the Black Swan interns story on Graduate Fog:
https://graduatefog.co.uk/2011/1619/black-swan-interns-sue-studio/
…does anyone know if there has been any progress with this case since then?
As for the American campaign, this may be of interest… When I spoke to Ross Perlin – the American author of Intern Nation – during his recent trip to the UK, he said that the UK was leading the fight against unpaid interns – which I thought was amazing!
Britain’s interns are leading the way in the global fight, says US author
I guess it’s because the US is such a huge country that it’s difficult to organise a cohesive campaign to tackle this issue. For what it’s worth, we have the same problems here in the UK that interns are too scared to ‘speak out’ – but the brilliant thing about the internet is that even those interns can do something, by re-tweeting tweets from our campaign groups – including this website, plus our friends at Intern Aware, Interns Anonymous and Internocracy. Are there really no groups championing this issue in the US? That seems unbelievable!
As you say, the abuses happening in the US are pretty similar to what’s happening in the UK (and Europe) I think – apart from that I thought that if there was a significantly clear ‘training’ element to a US internship, it MAY not need to be paid… Can any US interns confirm that is the case?
“I thought that if there was a significantly clear ‘training’ element to a US internship, it MAY not need to be paid… Can any US interns confirm that is the case?”
Tanya, this too is what I thought about internships in America. I was always under the impression that internships were part of vocational college credit…
@ Craig
From what I’ve heard, it’s a bit like in the UK, where more and more companies are sneakily getting undergraduates to do proper jobs, but just not pay them – by disguising these temp jobs as ‘work experience placements.’ And the universities are colluding in this – in order to keep in with these big companies (employers) – thereby effectively screwing over their own students…
US grads, is that true?
I managed interns for a small non-profit in the States. We had a (paid) staff of 6 and 5-10 (or more) interns at any one time. It was a mixed bag: some were getting credits for college, but many were not. One was paid through a brilliant scheme called Summer Search. Through us, all worked for nothing. Not even lunch money/travel expenses. No questions asked. It was considered a highly covetable internship. Some stayed for as long as 6 months or more. Almost of them had other part-time paying jobs to fund the unpaid internship. It just seemed to be the done thing.
Please note: I’m not saying I agree with unpaid internships. I 100%, absolutely, unequivocally don’t. I’m just stating what I experienced in the States.
It is not at all the case that the US is behind the UK when it comes to legislating for interns to be paid. Over there an employer can use an unpaid triainee ONLY if all the following apply:
1 The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction
2 The training is for the benefit of the trainees
3 The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation
4 The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded
5 The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period
6 The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training
If only the UK had such strict legal provisions in place!
Hi Tanya,
I’ve made a few comments about my internship experiences, but not one of my internships (even in university) were for college credit. I’m a US citizen who graduated from school in Canada, so I can comment from both sides. I’ve done internships in both countries and here are my experiences and observations:
1) For a specific PR college program, internships are required at the end of your school year in order to get your diploma or certificate. These can be either paid or unpaid.
2) Since I went to university, there was no internship scheme in my program. I still picked up a few because I wanted to make my CV stronger.
3) In two unpaid internships (I was paid minimum wage in another and had the same responsibilities as unpaid), I displaced regular employees. For one unpaid internship (about 7 months after graduation)I needed to:
– maintain the social media website
– write an interview transcript for our records
– come up with a social media strategy
– write reports.
I left this internship after 3.5 weeks for my current paid job. Before leaving, my boss told me he wanted me in for regular hours. At the time I was coming in about 20 hours a week no expenses and using my own laptop.I got lunch a couple of times a week.
For the other unpaid internship I:
– successfully secured vendors for events
– successfully secured media coverage for the art gallery (got us published a couple times in known publications)
– CLEANED UP the gallery after events
– did art inventory
– brought people into the gallery which led to sales in some cases
– wrote press releases
– expanded our media contact list
In either of these cases, I was not being trained. I had no one looking over my work or mentoring me. In fact I was expected to bring ideas into both organizations and was encouraged to take initiative. I realize I learned nothing that I would learn in a PR program (how to correctly write a press release, PR software). I had to educate myself and learn on the spot. They looked to me for new ideas just like they would to an assistant. I’m not sure if the political office has some loop holes they work with, but my art gallery internship was definitely illegal, hands down.
Hope that helps put things into perspective Tanya! They are starting to publish articles about unpaid internships in newspapers over here (ex. Globe and Mail), but we haven’t had an internship campaign take off yet. I can’t speak for all interns, but my peers and I feel especially taken advantage of but powerless to really do anything. We haven’t had anyone in government step up (like the HRMC) and pledge to help us. Instead it’s pretty much ignored and swept under the rug.
P.S. To directly answer your question Tanya YES the exact same thing is happening at alarming rates over here. All I have to do is pursue my alma mater’s career site to see that most of the internships are unpaid. I just saw an unpaid internship for a “Medical Clinic Assistant” at a doctor’s office. Communications firms, advertising agencies, television stations, galleries… are notorious for using unpaid labour. Basically everyone setting up, greeting, etc. at LG fashion week and L’Oreal fashion week were all unpaid and recruited through this communications firm.
“If only the UK had such strict legal provisions in place!”
We have a National Minimum Wage in place – and that’s ignored… What makes you think that such strict legal provisions wouldn’t be ignored?
I don’t believe unpaid and expenses only culture is going away fast in the UK, even with the tremendous amount of press about it.
They may well be ignored, but there would be far less wiggle room for companies to equivocate. And that is precisely the point, exactly what happens and why so many “internships” are advertised unpaid – by companies seeking to talk their way round the provisions of the law!
Yes, and I see that system of no wiggle-room is working great in America…
Employers are always going to weasel round the law. Greater regulation is not the solution – we need to start enforcing existing rules before we can introduce new ones.
The point is that, with requirements as exacting as those that exist in America, at least there is the mechanism to be able to point to something substantial and hold an employer to account.
Conditions 1 and 4 particularly, they provide hurdles which many/most employers in the UK would be hard to identify in their “internships” to defend their practices. In the UK a general “no requirement to undertake set duties” is sufficiently anomalous for employers to generally wave about as a defence. We would be far better if the US conditions applied in the UK!
@Louise I absolutely agree with you that regulations are key… however in the US, these regulations are not enforced. Most interns don’t complain because they don’t want to get blacklisted and employers are never going to tell on themselves. Most of my peers, I believe, don’t even know these regulations exist let alone take advantage of them. I think the Black Swan case was a great example and hope it sets a precedent. At the same time though, government needs to crack down on illegal internships (which they’ll never do). We have the government chasing after illegal aliens working but not checking to see if companies are taking advantage of illegal internships.
So basically we need to continue to spread awareness. I think in the UK you are making much more progress than in the US. Tanya is doing a great job of mobilizing everyone and I wish we had the same thing across the pond. I tried involving some of my peers and while they HATE unpaid internships, no one was really willing to tackle the issue. It’s sad.
The sad truth is that her views are representitive of so many people in business using interns and the ridiculous ways in which they justify their practice. As someone who has done a few internships, and not found them hugely beneficial on the whole, (and is currently doing another one!) I find this matter very close to my heart. It is a sad state of affairs.
Little mention is made of the betrayers who agree to work for nothing knowing full well they’re denying opportunities to the ever-expanding number of young people who simply can’t afford to work for nothing, much less attend college. They’re scabs, plain and simple.