PARTY’S ACTIONS MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH THEIR PROMISES, SAYS GRADUATE FOG
A Labour MP has been found to be paying his interns just £4 a day, apparently conflicting with a pledge made last week by Ed Miliband to tackle the problems of low pay and unpaid internships.
Graduate Fog is today asking Ed Miliband to ensure his own MPs’ actions are consistent with the party’s promises. Last week, we were impressed that the Labour leader spoke out on the sticky issues of low paid work and unpaid internships, promising to increase the minimum wage and tweak the law so that so that interns working for more than four weeks are automatically entitled to the minimum wage, if he is elected next month.
However, it seems Miliband may need to start with his own MPs. Today, the Sun has reported that Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield and deputy chairman of the Labour election campaign, has been paying his campaign volunteers just £4 per day for 12-hour days.
Clearly, this is not a great moment for Ed Miliband’s campaign – and it’s obvious that he needs to have a word with Mr Perkins. But Graduate Fog feels that the response to this story has been disproportionate. (Front page of the Sun? Really?).
Over the top? The front page of today’s Sun
We have been following politics internships for five years now, and we have concluded that attitudes towards unpaid work are deeply ingrained, as in the fashion industry. A serious culture change is long overdue.
We have found MPs of all three main parties using unpaid interns (often called ‘campaign volunteers’). And we can say that Labour are the least bad (!). When we wrote about this back in February, the Conservatives were by far the most prolific advertisers of ‘campaign volunteers’. And it is Lib Dem MP John Leech who holds the crown for advertising the most unpaid internships (nine), which is why we reported him to HM Revenue and Customs.
The Labour Party has been by far the strongest supporters of the work of those of us who campaign on this issue. Ed Miliband, Hazel Blears, Stella Creasy, Liam Byrne and Andy Burnham have all pledged their support publicly.
They may not be perfect – and they definitely need to work on their consistency. But Labour is still by far the party that has done the most to support interns’ rights in the UK.
*ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED IN LABOUR?
Did the Sun’s story expose hypocrisy in the Labour Party’s election campaign – or is it just a sign that Ed Miliband needs to educate his own party better on the issue of unpaid work? Which political party do you think has done the most for interns so far – and should they all do more?
Have a look at W4MP, this is very ingrained. They’ve often just replaced the word “intern” with “campaign volunteer” and put a disclaimer about minimum wage law.
And whilst 9-5 style office work in London are clear cut, in local parties you’ll have even more of a blurring and confusion between”genuine volunteering” and what should be considered work.
As one of John Leech’s staffers argued the reality of negative coverage like this is that it just drives the problem underground.
My MP has never advertised on W4MP for an intern. Yet when I contacted his office on a routine matter (getting some tickets for PMQs) it was dealt with by an intern who somehow got to work in a Westminster office without any kind of job advert ever existing. How did that happen? Presumably a tap on the shoulder at a poorly attended constituency association meeting.
If you are not able to work for free you will struggle to make it in the Labour Party in my experience. A junior researcher post on W4MP demands 1 year of experience and unpaid work allows you to meet that requirement.
One woman I know started as an unpaid intern for a Labour MP and is now part of Ed Miliband’s staff. Whatever you think of Ed that is CV gold dust — saying you worked in the Leader of the Opposition’s office and in all likelihood the office of the next PM.
@MWA I think we all agree that these internships can be valuable for a person’s CV – the problem is that when they’re unpaid they are only open to those who can afford to work for free.
On the point about negative publicity making the problem worse, I totally get what you mean but that argument still makes me really cross! The solution is for employers to start paying their staff, not for their staff to stop complaining about it!
The other part of the solution is for employers to become more aware of their legal responsibilities, and for the minimum wage law to be enforced properly, with hefty fines for those who break it. The other is for employers to be more aware of the moral reasons for paying their interns. A shocking number – especially in closed worlds like fashion and politics – don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. Some MPs seem to be about three years behind everybody else on the importance of paying people a wage for their work. It’s shocking that campaigners like me are still having to explain the basics to them!
@Alex W Agreed, the ‘campaign volunteer’ thing is ridiculous! We’re looking forward to the election being over. We’ve found it’s hard to argue that this is wrong, as people seem to feel that political campaigning is something people do in the spirit of their local community (this may be true for some volunteers, but v few people of working age, we think). It’s much easier to argue our case when there’s no election and they’re just doing loads of work for an MP who wants to save on their staffing budget!
Although We should take a stand against disreputable employers, I am not sure whether Campaign Volunteers would be covered by even the National Minimum Wage Legislation. Historically, Campaign Volunteers have been precisely that, volunteers.
Campaign volunteer to me, should mean (and only mean) at most giving up a bit of free time to leaflet/canvass/door knock. NOT doing MPs skivvy work in an office- those are duties/work and MUST be paid
I hope ED looks into this, and takes the necessary action- otherwise, yet another lie/broken promise