WHEN WILL CIPD DROP THIS DUD IDEA?
**This post was originally published in June 2010, but for some reason the CIPD is banging on about it again in January 2011. Graduate Fog thought the idea sucked then – and it still sucks now. Do you agree? Please comment below!**
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development has suggested graduate interns should be paid less than half the minimum wage for their work.
According to the CIPD, this wage will “reflect the contribution that interns make to their organisations, which is likely to be less than that of a fully-trained member of staff.”
Despite publishing a 20-page report – called ‘Internships: To Pay or not To Pay?’ – it seems the CIPD still can’t quite decide on the answer to that question.
So instead they’ve suggested paying you half the minimum wage, as a compromise.
Actually, it’s less than half. (The current national minimum wage for over-21s is £5.80).
If you work an 8-hour day on this ‘Training Wage’, you’ll make £20 per day.
Which is £100 per week.
That’s £400 per month.
Tom Richmond, Skills Adviser at the CIPD, explained:
“The continued existence of a major loophole in the national minimum wage legislation has created a lot of confusion and concern around the issue of whether interns should be paid or not.
“We believe that the introduction of this Training Wage would reflect the contribution that interns make to their organisations, which is likely to be less than that of a fully-trained member of staff, at the same time as avoiding concerns over reductions in the number of internship opportunities that may result from all interns being paid the full minimum wage.
“Alongside the introduction of the Training Wage, a number of related issues would also need to be discussed, including which working rights interns should be entitled to.
“Nevertheless, the creation of the Training Wage would represent a significant step towards ensuring that internships promote social mobility, provide young people with valuable experience and help tackle exploitation in the workplace.
“What’s more, organisations would still be able to recruit young talent at a reasonable rate during this difficult economic period and beyond.”
Supporters of the Training Wage point out that £2.50 is the same amount paid to apprentices.
But Internocracy‘s Becky Heath tells Graduate Fog she has concerns about that justification:
“If interns are given the sort of structured training programme that apprentices already have, combining gaining skills for work and structured study as part of a nationally-accredited scheme, this will certainly raise the quality of many internships.
“However, if the ‘Training Wage’ is introduced it’s hard to see this happening and I fear interns will be paid, and indeed valued, much less. Offering a ‘training wage’ does not solve the social mobility problem – even interns on National Minimum Wage find it hard to get by, particularly in London where this is around £2 less per hour than the London Living Wage.”
– Interns often do contribute as much as a full-time member of staff. Okay, so that’s a junior member of staff, but still. While you yourself admit you aren’t senior or experienced, many of the tales featured on Interns Anonymous show that you’re busy, productive and relied-upon member of the team. Or did I miss something? Are we just not paying junior staff members of staff anymore? I’ve already been disturbed by the subtle shift away from employers taking responsibility for training of their junior staff – and pushing that on to you (so you effectively train yourselves, on your own time). My worry is that paying you such a low wage could devalue your work further in the eyes of employers.
Legitimising a training wage would take the heat off exploitative employers who know they should be paying their interns a full minimum wage. If bosses were starting to worry that using unpaid interns was a bad look and considering paying you the full minimum wage, haven’t they just been handed a perfect way to look legit for less than half the cost? Why would any employer pay a graduate the full minimum wage when they can pay them less than half and still be seen to be doing the responsible thing? And surely there would then be even less incentive to take you on full-time, on a proper salary? Also, there’s something really distasteful about the idea that big companies could pinch pennies here and there at your expense, considering the vast sums money these firms are still spending on things like PR – without even flinching.
– £400 a month is not enough to live on if you’re paying rent. The CIPD has insisted that “the creation of the Training Wage would represent a significant step towards ensuring that internships promote social mobility,” but Graduate Fog can’t see how. We all know that best opportunities within most industries are often in big cities like London. How on earth is a graduate supposed to afford a roof over their head in the capital on £400 a month? I’m assuming interns earning the Training Wage wouldn’t be eligible for any other kind of benefit to top this up?
*Would you accept the ‘Training Wage’?
What do you think – is the CIPD plan an insult to graduate interns? Or step in the right direction?
“If interns are given the sort of structured training programme that apprentices already have, combining gaining skills for work and structured study as part of a nationally-accredited scheme, this will certainly raise the quality of many internships.” There is a big difference between someone doing an apprenticeship which is really for people who have not got a degree or other qualification, and internships for graduates. The graduate gave up the opportunity to earn more than part-time wages during the three years they were studying and gained a qualification that took 3 years.
http://www.inspiringinterns.com/blog/2011/01/interns-should-be-paid-2-50-an-hour-training-wage
Naturally, your best buds at II have some thoughts on this. I have commented telling them not to confuse reimbursement with a wage, not that £2.50 an hour is a wage.
I had an argument with someone from the CIPD about this a few months ago on Twitter. Their argument was that many employers do no pay the NMW and that £2.50 was better than nothing. I have to say I found it quite hard to argue around equating an intern to an apprentice. Why should an intern be paid more than the minimum an apprentice is? By virtue of a degree. Mind you I still disagreed with the sentiment. The NMW has been there for 13 years. The actions of the CIPD appear to legitimise the questionable practices of many employers. The question is whether employers exploit interns or are ignorant of the fact that the NMW applies to them as well?
I commented on the II site about how they shouldn’t even think about trying to justify themselves by claiming that they agree with all the companies they work with to give the interns up to £2.50 a day reimbursement. Having to buy something you wouldn’t otherwise need if you weren’t working does NOT constitute a wage. Plus, it takes up to a week for my employers to reimburse me anyway.
Unsurprisingly, they haven’t approved my comment yet….
@David
Of course £2.50 is better than nothing – but I agree with you that it is not enough. Plus, it would undermine the NMW laws that we have in this country.
As for Apprentices, do they get £2.50 per hour? Because that is disgraceful, if they’re doing proper work.
I also agree with Shiv Malik’s point in his book Jilted Generation that there is something fundamentally creepy about the way we pay a different NMW for people over and under 21. What’s that about? If you’re doing a job, you’re doing a job. Your age simply isn’t relevant. And it just reinforces this idea that young people’s work is somehow worth less than older people’s work, even when they’re doing EXACTLY THE SAME JOB!
As for whether this is exploitation or ignorance, for me the jury is still out. In general, I’d say most employers know deep down that the fact that their intern has been doing a proper job for them, unpaid for 3/6 months isn’t right (SURELY this occurs to them?) but they bat away their niggling doubts by telling themselves they’re providign a fantastic training experience etc… And if it was illegal, surely everyone else wouldn’t be doing it.. Would they???
@RedHeadFashionista
That’s interesting! The only comments I don’t approve on GF are ones that are abusive / offensive either to another members of the GF community, or to me. I’m very happy for people to disagree with me / us on this site, but I do ask that they’re respectful and not just ranty and abusive.
I take it your post was polite?? ; )
Ha ha. Well, nothing starred out…
They have just posted this one Facebook: Today at 12.38 is predicted to be the busiest moment of the entire year for job searches…so get applying and join the surge!
To which I replied: ‘Yay, join the surge of other prospectless graduates who don’t have enough ‘experience’ to demand a proper wage’. And they deleted it!
Possibly wise, perhaps, considering I’m on their books, I’m currently at an internship that they got me, and ALL my employers follow me on Twitter and Facebook. ‘Nowhere is safe….’ except here, perhaps!
Graduates are the new slaves it seems to me, and we’re now in the crazy position whereby all those dingbat chavs out there who have felt so far they have some god-given right to insult and abuse students and graduates are probably laughing at us, whereas I always thought a degree would allow me to separate myself from such morons, many of us grads now find ourselves being forced to mix with them – supermarkets, call centres and the like or at the job centre. Elitist? Me? Too right….
There seems to an assumption (or perhaps I’m just imagining it) that interns should be paid the NMW. This can seem attractive when people are working for little nothing which is just plain immoral and not conducive to young people forming healthy relationships with their colleagues and employer.
Three jobs ago I spent four years running an unpaid internship programme for an US undergraduate study abroad programme, which is the subject for another discussion. I can confidently say that most of the placements I organised were substantive, and pretty much ‘graduate standard’, give or take. If employers had had to pay for this work it would have been at a rate well above the NMW. So what I’m basically saying is nothing more controversial as a fair day’s work for a fair days pay. Worrying how this has become something of a luxury in recent years.
For this to work, a paid internship at this rate would have to be qualitatively different from a real job for a real worker. This “pay” would have to be some recompense accompanied by plenty of verifiable on-the-job training.
If this became just a new level of the Minimum Wage then, as Tanya had suggested, all it would do is drag down the starting wage for graduates to a new £2.50 level. That would go entirely against the central philosophy of the Minimum Wage, a level of recompense which is intended to provide a basic standard of living.
Ultimately though, no-one can survive on £2.50 an hour (and certainly not in London) unless they have private means or wealthy parents. How does that equate with any kind of Fair Access?
Oh Taaaaanyaaaaaa, present!
http://ow.ly/3ClNT
A bit more cannon fodder for you, but I imagine you’ve discovered this already….
Are there any companies who pay interns a full wage or do they all do this?
I suppose they can’t really complain. It’s not forever, and eventually they’ll be earning thousands.
One other point which I don’t think has been raised yet…does anyone have an idea of the scale of unpaid internships in the UK? Whatever it is, there’s certainly a lot of tax and NI which is not being paid.
@Michael
There aren’t any hard and fast figs on unpaid internships (because guess what, people don’t tend to get it recorded when they’re using an unpaid intern, which is legally dubious!)… but from a survey done by the IPPR and Internocracy last year it seems likely it’s at least 130,000 in the last year. Personally, my hunch is that it’s likely that the problem is even more widespread.
@RedHeadFashionista
Thanks – what a vile piece – happily it seems I’m not the only person who thinks this!
@Graduate Careers in Milton Keynes – Yes, some companies do pay their interns. We love them!
Sadly, this is increasingly unlikely to be the case. Far too many companies are taking advantage of graduates’ desperation for experience and setting up a ‘revolving door’ of interns – so they get a new one in every six months, and never offer anybody a paid job… I’ve heard of grads interning unpaid for up to 2 years and STILL feeling they’re no closer to being paid anything – let alone a handsome salary.
@Mary
I couldn’t agree more! I think the £2.50 thing will only depress young people’s wages further – and legitimise the outrageous behaviour of so many companies currently taking advantage of their young workers.
@Michael
Re your earlier point about it being worrying that the NMW has somehow become a luxury in recent years – I agree 100%. Since when was a NMW starting salary a decent wage for people who have just made an enormous investment (of time, money and effort) in their education and training??
How on EARTH is Simon Hughes going to convince the next generation of prospective students that uni is a good investment? Frankly, his job will involve conning them out of the zillions of pounds needed to prop up our expensive-to-run universities. This is NOT acceptable.
@Robin Whitlock
I agree that graduate bashing is cruel and vile. The fact is that ALL these young people have been encouraged to go to university by people who told them it would lead to better – and better paid – jobs than NOT going.
Then they laugh at them for having lofty ambitions and being unrealistic, saying ‘What,you didn’t think that degree would actually get you a decent job, did you?’
Er yes, they kind of did, actually – because that’s what they’ve been told by all those people who were supposed to be giving them good advice! And I see this happening every single year… it’s a total scandal, tragedy etc etc.
I’m currently working at a what’s on and listings website and was recently given the title ‘Senior Editor’ by the websites owner. I manage a team of 6 at the website’s office, and have, since my time there, been in charge of interviewing and ‘hiring’ other interns. I am about to start managing a national team of around 30 people. I have also arranged an awards ceremony, trained each other the 6 interns on the team how to use the site, basic HTML and good web copy.
Currently I am unpaid. I am pushing for the minimum wage. If I am offered £2.50 an hour, I will be more than insulted.
The team ‘intern’ isn’t used in the working world properly – anyone at student or grad age can be passed off as an intern, regardless of their responsibilities and work load.
Of course this is missing the point. If you get paid for doing work, then by law you are a “worker”. No ifs, no buts, no “you’re getting experience”. Paying a person creates a contractual relationship (unless they are proposing paying you the £2.50 per hour WITHOUT any obligation on you to do anything in return – clearly not the case)
So you get paid, you’re a worker. If you’re a worker, by law you have to be paid the minimum wage. Complain to revenue and customs. And take the employer to an employment tribunal.
I did, and I won :).
Good for you Keri! 🙂