CHARITY BLASTED FOR ADVERTISING 33 UNPAID, OFFICE-BASED ROLES AIMED AT GRADUATES
* OOH! OUR STORY HAS BEEN PICKED UP BY THE TIMES, THE GUARDIAN AND THE DAILY MAIL*
The National Trust has insisted that its unpaid internships are not exploitative and are open to “a wide range of people,” despite many of the positions lasting up to six months at a time.
Graduate Fog regularly hears from young people desperate to start their career in the charity sector, but who are thwarted as they can’t afford to do the long unpaid internships that are now required of them before they will be considered for paid jobs. This website has written before about how we feel a loophole in the minimum wage law (originally designed to protect genuine volunteers from needing to be paid) is now being taken advantage of by many charities, who view it as a licence to gain unlimited free admin support from graduates.
We’ve written before about the National Trust’s infamous Apple and Cider internship of 2014. Prior to that – in 2011 – we questioned its Internship programme co-ordinator internship (yes, the unpaid intern co-ordinates the unpaid interns programme). The latest crop of adverts appears to show that nothing has changed.
Among the 33 unpaid internships currently available at the National Trust are many at its headquarters, including a ‘Campaigns and policy internship‘. The successful candidate will “help develop strategic advocacy opportunities” and “research, analyse and summarise” government policy announcements. The unpaid role is three days a week for six months, and travel and lunch expenses are paid. As Graduate Fog founder Tanya de Grunwald told The Times:
“The National Trust appears to be using a loophole in the law to get unlimited free support, usually from recent graduates,” Tanya de Grunwald, the founder of Graduatefog.co.uk said. “Anyone who can’t afford to work for months without pay won’t be able to start a career in charities. We’ve got to the position where working for a charity has become a luxury and charities exclusive clubs.
“Charities are way behind the curve on this and they need to wake up. The chief executive gets well paid and they often have fancy head offices but don’t seem to have enough money to pay junior staff for real work. It’s unfair and exploitative.”
Alec Shelbrooke, a Conservative MP who has campaigned to tighten the law, agreed:
“The National Trust is a wealthy charity so it is morally corrupt to get young people to intern for free.
“Unpaid internships only help those from the higher echelons of society who have independent wealth and that’s not fair. If two kids from different backgrounds have the same qualifications, it’s the one who could afford to do the unpaid internship that gets the job and that perpetuates the class divide.”
But Nick Foley, a spokesman for the National Trust, defended its internships, saying:
“We believe that voluntary internships provide a great opportunity to involve a wide range of people in our work at the same time as gaining work experience of direct benefit for their future careers. We ensure opportunities are as flexible as they can be to allow time for paid work, job seeking, alternative training and on-going studies.”
This website has challenged the idea that charity internships are okay if they are part-time. We reported that Oxfam interns were turning up to work at the charity exhausted, as they were working evening and weekend jobs in order to survive.
Yes about time this was picked up. Certainly NT have been using unpaid interns at Anglesey Abbey and Wicken Fen for two years at least. These are not the same as volunteers. They have hours of work and have to be there.
I worked for years in the voluntary sector as a manager, and indeed for the National Trust, and think this attention grabbing post is poorly thought out, and undermines the good case that exists for doing more to help new generations of environmentalists into work.
The environmental movement and heritage sector have always had but a tiny fraction of the resources needed to achieve what is needed. They have always been resourced through limited incomes streams and the goodwill of people – the gift of time. Were we to deny the offer of time freely given, where does this end up? What happens to the Scout Movement? What about Parent & Toddler groups?
Anyone working in the voluntary sector needs to understand and value the contribution volunteers make. I have bought dozens of people into a long term career in the environment through volunteering roles and apprenticeships, work which has helped them see the community, health and wellbeing benefits from volunteering.
I think you are better off challenging the Trust on its use of zero hours contracts, its flat staffing structure and lack of diversity in employment.
Sorry. You are setting up an aunt Sally here. No problem with volunteering, we agree on this. Volunteers are people who are often retired, have an income and can turn up or not as they choose. If you effectively have fixed hours to work, and a job to do that adds value, then min wage should be paid. These are usually young graduates. The fact that those with the means to support themselves go along with it does not make it right. Zero hours and lack of diversity, in both class and ethnicity, we have no disagreement. Maybe a pound or two on the subs of a million members would pay for civilised employment practices.
@Chris Abbott:
“Volunteers are people who are often retired, have an income and can turn up or not as they choose”
Often they are not. Such people cannot be denied their gift of time in case someone else feels they are being exploited. If as a Countryside Manager I was only able to employ young people (or have them volunteer for a few hours) then I would only have helped a handful of people into environmental work, I would not have improved the employment prospects of many others; and the scale of our environmental achievements will have been much less.
If you think the £8M that an extra £2 on membership fees will mean that all those young people that wish to give their time can be paid for it, then you are mistaken.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with inviting people to become volunteers…including within many erstwhilte profit generating charities and Social Enterprises (such as National Trust) which exists as a Business Entity, which has access to funding streams, and continues to employ Senior Staff on extremely generous Salary/Expenses.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with inviting people to become volunteers…and for those employers who shirk their responsibilities, if there is an attempt to evade the payment of tax, MHRC may invoke their Criminal Investigation Powers to investigate any employer for the criminal act of perpetrating tax fraud.
I am sure that the National Trust, as with other Socially Conscious Employers, will do their utmost to remove the stench of deceit from their business model, and if erstwhile personnel clerks attempt to employ people on defacto Contracts of Employment, but shirk their responsibilities where the payment of Salary/Tax/National Insurance is concerned, then I am more than happy to draw HMRC to the attention of any disreputable employer.
Stop abusing young people and pay them a wage. Volunteers are fine but abuse of young people trying to get a first job role is wrong. I will be stopping our membership if this is not addressed next week.
Great comments, thanks everyone.
Having campaigned for fair internships for six years (!), I am really pleased that the people finally seem more open to this discussion about whether charities should be exempt from having to pay their interns. I can really sense a shift at last.
A key issue that keeps coming up is this question of what is volunteering v interning. It’s an interesting one, and I don’t have all the answers. But I do think it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with a check list that charities could use to help them decide.
There’s definitely something about hours, and the nature of the work (office based or not? Possibly not quite that straightforward). I also think there is something about the person’s motivation when taking the role. (Whereas a volunteer would say their motivation is giving back / getting involved / making friends, an intern / graduate is more likely to say ‘gain experience in order to help me apply for paid roles’). I’m not sure if that in itself makes them an intern as opposed to a volunteer, but I think we’d be heading in the right direction…
OR do we just close the minimum wage loophole and make a checklist for whether someone is a ‘volunteer’ (or not)? And if they qualify as a true volunteer, then THEY become the only exemption?
The last paragraph of the Guardian’s coverage is interesting – to my mind it proves that charities really don’t ‘get it’ yet:
Guys, that’s the whole point!!
@Tanya de Grunwald
At the Trust, the problem is not the ability to volunteer a couple of days or more a week to help equip you with the crucial things that only experience can provide – technical skills, understanding of volunteer needs and a sensitivity to stakeholder needs.
Moreover, I take the view – and have observed – that staff employed without a strong (and positive) experience of volunteering do not grasp the central purpose of the trust – its about winning hearts and minds of the public to care for and share our heritage.
There is a bigger problem up the employment line that impacts on stints of volunteering – over reliance on seasonal posts – often on zero hours contracts (eg restaurant staff told to go home on wet days); the HR-led policy of laying off short-term roles (up to 12months) in order to prevent employment rights accruing; and the flat employment structure with little by way of career path within most of their most sought after roles.
Despite owing the Tolpuddle tree, their sense of partnership with their employers has long been inadequate The sacking of its “Crow Bar” union members in the 1980’s, the refusal to accept the gift of Ministry of Works Properties like Stonehenge because of TUPE requirements are just two examples.
Housing affordability hampers them big time, which they can do very little about, although the removal of tied accomodation was a Pontius Pilate solution from the Landlord end of the organisation.
The only extent to which I think the internship debate stacks up is over the question of diversity of its staff and supporters, but that is in fact a bigger challenge for the Trust than just about internships, and should be framed more broadly.
Any solution we find in this area needs to recognise that it does not have the budget to achieve a fraction of all it needs to to look after our heritage. So it needs to find its limited funds travel as far as possible.
You may, as a Tory MP, say they are rich charity, but they sit on enormous financial liabilities – having bailed out the estates of many Tories, AND opened those up for access, AND restorred them AND make an undertaking never to sell them and look after them so they will always be accessible.
Good article and about time too that this sort of exploitation is discussed.
Volunteering is great when it really is volunteering, otherwise it is just that: expoitation.
Take a look at Place2Be the childrens charity for exemple. ‘Volunteers’ work for nothing more than a cup of tea and have to commit for a whole year. It is all done under the guise of offering training, but this is usually not necessary as the trainng is done elsewhere, in colleges and universities that the trainees are already paying to attend.
The top execs get salaries in six figures, while the BIG majority of the ‘workforce’ does not earn at all. Exploitation pure and simple.
I’m glad this issue has been brought to the fore, the National Trust recruitment process is unscrupulous to say the least! I live in North Wales and I know for a fact that nepotism is rife around here, and their whole recruitment process stinks of positive discrimination.
People should really do their research about this ‘membership’ organisation before joining. The pay difference between NT chief execs and their entry level ‘professional’ graduate entry jobs is scandalous.
They also allow fox hunting on their estates, what kind of a ‘conservation’ body allows that behaviour to continue.
Hi all, I’m on the hunt for a former National Trust intern who will speak to a journalist about their experience, plus their views on why they think NT internships should be paid. If you can help, please email me via the form on our Contact Us page (link below). Thanks so much!
https://graduatefog.co.uk/about/contact-graduate-fog/
PS. His deadline is 5pm so please be quick!