PRESSURE FROM GRADUATE FOG LEADS FORMER PM TO CHANGE HIS POLICY ON PAYING YOUNG STAFF
From today Tony Blair will pay all interns working in his profit-making businesses where they are doing placements of three months or more, his office has announced.
The statement came in response to growing public pressure after the Guardian announced that the former prime minister could face an investigation by tax authorities HM Revenue and Customs, when Graduate Fog’s evidence was passed on to officials. The statement from a spokesperson said:
“Over the past 5 years the Office of Tony Blair has had a small number of voluntary interns gaining work experience in the organisation. The vast majority came to us at their request, unadvertised for voluntary work. Of those, a number have since become full time paid employees with us. We have also always acted on legal advice in respect of any intern.
“Nonetheless from now on, if we do have interns for an extended period i.e. around 3 months, we will pay them the National Minimum Wage.
“Two of the charities do have voluntary intern programmes. As independent charities they pay expenses.”
Okay – we know it’s not perfect. The implication that internships of less than three months could still be unpaid – while involving real work – is not good enough. The insistence that the fact that all these internships are ‘voluntary’ (is there any other kind of internship? Compulsory?) will wind up many of our readers. And the fact that interns at Blair’s charity will still be unpaid is not ideal either.But come on, this is a still big win. Don’t forget, this is not a man who often admits that he is wrong… As Graduate Fog’s founder Tanya de Grunwald told the Guardian:
“This is a major victory for interns — and it proves that they have more power than they think they do.
“This is the latest in a string of cases where high-profile employers have either changed their policy on unpaid interns or awarded back pay to their young workers retrospectively as a result of our naming and shaming.
“Public concern about youth unemployment means it is becoming increasingly embarrassing for big brands of famous individuals to be caught using unpaid interns for extended periods and we are determined to exploit their fear of bad press.
“With Twitter and Facebook these stories can spread in minutes — and the nature of the internet means they can never be erased. As more interns are now coming forward to tell us their stories, big employers who have been using unpaid interns should be very worried indeed.”
However, Gus Baker from Intern Aware queried why Blair wasn’t paying all his interns. “While it is good and welcome that Blair has relented and agreed to pay the interns in his private office, he still reportedly does not pay those working for his charity:
“Failing to pay at least the national minimum wage isn’t just unfair on interns who are asked work for free, it excludes those who can’t afford to. Tony Blair should know better and pay all his interns a fair wage.”
*WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF TONY BLAIR’S CHANGE OF HEART?
Are you pleased he has changed his policy – or do you still want HMRC to investigate? Should he pay all his interns – including those working at his charity, and those who work for less than three months? Why do you think he changed his policy on interns? Is the fear of bad press the best way to scare employers into paying their young staff a fair wage? Or should the government be pursuing cases with fines and prosecutions?
Sorry to anyone who tried to post a comment here earlier – the comments were ‘Closed’ for some reason but should now be open! I did think it was weird that nobody had anything to say – that’s very unlike the Graduate Fog tribe to be so shy…
Tanya
Just wanted to say “Congrats” again, Tanya. At least TB’s been made to pay what he owes the interns …
Yes the government should be prosecuting and fining companies for using unpaid interns. Sadly I can’t see it happening as the government seems to think unpaid labour will help unemployment through “helping people get skills”-despite substantial evidence that it means there are less paid jobs available and less spending that could help get the economy going. HMRC should investigate, Blair disgusts me: a multi millionaire avoiding paying young people trying to get a break in life. Of course his own children have all secured paid roles through his contacts and influence.
Oh and up to 3 months unpaid is too long in my opinion. It should be one month maximum unpaid.
A small but significant victory. Congratulations to all those who brought the case to the government’s attention! Sadly, though, many battles are fought and lost, but this victory should be celebrated.
@Caitlyn
I think this victory will be extended to all interns doing real work for Tony Blair (3 months, 1 month or whatever). His office now knows any breach of NMW will be followed up. The amount of money the office might save by not paying interns working shorter periods than 3 months is not worth the political embarrassment such law-breaking would cause when that fact comes to light.
Well done and well deserved.
“Should he pay all his interns — including those working at his charity,”
The charities sector (which is supposed to do the right thing) is diseased.
They always cling to the charitable exemption in the law erroneously.
How can we tackle this issue???
Totally agree Derrick. Nothing wrong with people doing a few hours a week unpaid for charity if they want to but all these charity “internships” that demand lots of hours and don’t lead to a job are as bad as those offered by private companies. The more I hear about charities the more I want to work for a private company-of course it’s not all of them but several think it’s OK to treat staff/volunteers and donors like crap in pursuit of their goals.
“but all these charity “internships” that demand lots of hours and don’t lead to a job”
Errmmm you can’t offer ANY internship on the basis that it may lead to a job. That kind of incentive is illegal.
Well strictly speaking that isn’t the case Derrick, although it should be.
Why not? I checked with Pay and Work Rights Helpline yesterday.
A promise for future work does not count as a consideration in terms of whether a contract has been formed or not as it has no monetary value in itself. If you use someone as a worker then yes, they must be paid as one but the promise of a job does not in itself make any difference.
MaryB, I’d be inclined to disagree with you and agree with Derick here.
A job offer is consideration in exchange for any work performed during an internship (and Business Link, now defunct, stated this explicitly up until recently). I imagine it would lower the threshold of finding a worker role quite considerably.
‘A contracting party can stipulate for what consideration he chooses. A peppercorn does not cease to be good consideration if it is established that the promisor does not like pepper and will throw away the corn.’
A job offer at the end of an internship is contractual consideration for work performed during an internship. For paid internships, this isn’t a problem. For unpaid internships, it’s an automatic contract.
I wish that were true but a consideration does have to have a monetary value, be exchangeable for cash, and a job offer does not fulfill that.
I’m sorry, but I believe that’s totally incorrect under English law. Consideration does NOT have to have a monetary equivalent value.
Consideration for a particular promise exists where some right, interest, profit or benefit accrues (or will accrue) to the promisor as a direct result of some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility that has been given, suffered or undertaken by the promisee.
Consideration can be anything of value (such as an item or service), which each party to a legally binding contract must agree to exchange if the contract is to be valid.
Mutual promises constitute consideration for each other. (“I promise you to do X, in consideration for which promise you promise me to do Y”, alternately “Complete a three month internship, and we’ll offer you a paid position”.)
I can assure you that this discussion has been had with HMRC’s Minimum Wage compliance team and they do not regard the promise of a job as a consideration when it comes to determinnig whether someone is due the Minimum Wage.
Then MaryB, if that’s how HMRC feels, then I think we all have our answer as to why HMRC are doing the bare minimum about unpaid internships. They clearly do not have a basic knowledge of contract law.
That is a lesson for us all: take your claims to the courts rather than HMRC. Let those who apply the law (judges) apply the law, rather than putting your faith in a department so intertwined with the Government which wants you to work for free that they’ll bend founding principles of law (contract is ancient) to the point they don’t apply anymore.
I agree with CD and the pay and rights helpline advised me as such only last week.
@Derrick: The Pay and Work Rights Helpline used to apply the advice which was on the Business Link England website (before it was replaced by GOV.UK).
The old content (which was brilliant) hasn’t been put onto GOV.UK, but you can find it in its identical form here:
http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/static/html/detail-1587.html
I quote: