Unpaid internships

[SideWinder]

How can a single month be that useful? It's 4 weeks... 20 days. Worth more than your degree? If that really is the case then I'm absolutely amazed. 20 days is nothing at all!

I know it's hard to believe but i think it's down to where i am currently working - fashion etc.

My degree is in Psychology and my previous career history is the usual Tesco/DSGI so it certainly isn't anything that puts me above anyone else applying for the company i work for. As i had that work experience and knew a bit about how the company worked, showed a high level of interest and wanted to continue, i was asked to help out in a different department and that resulted in more experience within that company.

I ended up being on a rolling contract with a recruitment agency and now i am full time.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

I'm going to be doing something similar for the next fortnight. 8:30-17:00 Monday to Friday of completely unpaid work, it's called something like the "Mandatory Work Scheme" which as far as I can tell is meant to be some sort of punishment for the dossers who sit on the dole and then spend their JSA down the local pub within 30 minutes of it being in their account.

I'm an ex-student living in a small town, there aren't that many jobs in my chosen sector but I do have transport and I do look for jobs in areas that I wouldn't have considered, I've been applying for a huge amount of jobs since claiming and have basically been forced onto this scheme. The only reason I'm not appealing against it is that if I do so there's a high chance they'll throw my appeal out without even considering it and then dock my JSA. The other reason being it's probably better to just do the fortnight of unpaid work in the slim chances that the company might decide to take me on full time, though I'm guessing the more likely outcome is they just tell me to go do one after the fortnight and then bring in some other poor person for another 2 weeks of free work...

 

[RickST]

I'm going to be doing something similar for the next fortnight. 8:30-17:00 Monday to Friday of completely unpaid work, it's called something like the "Mandatory Work Scheme" which as far as I can tell is meant to be some sort of punishment for the dossers who sit on the dole and then spend their JSA down the local pub within 30 minutes of it being in their account.

I'm an ex-student living in a small town, there aren't that many jobs in my chosen sector but I do have transport and I do look for jobs in areas that I wouldn't have considered, I've been applying for a huge amount of jobs since claiming and have basically been forced onto this scheme. The only reason I'm not appealing against it is that if I do so there's a high chance they'll throw my appeal out without even considering it and then dock my JSA. The other reason being it's probably better to just do the fortnight of unpaid work in the slim chances that the company might decide to take me on full time, though I'm guessing the more likely outcome is they just tell me to go do one after the fortnight and then bring in some other poor person for another 2 weeks of free work...

So its not really unpaid work, you are being paid by the state?

 

[Thunderbolt]

I've just graduated and gotten a job without a problem. I think unpaid internships are disgusting and appalling.
Firstly I feel its morally wrong to have someone working for you for free.
Secondly it discriminates horrendously against people that can't afford to live without earning.
Thirdly it prevents people moving from their "home" location, which I think is a bit wrong as well.

Would love someone to explain clearly why it happens.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

So its not really unpaid work, you are being paid by the state?

I get £50 a week from the government which apparently is how much I need to live on... It's free for the company I'm working for, they aren't paying me squat.

 

[steinooo]

Unpaid internships are absolutely ridiculous and should be banned immediately. Anyone who sticks up for them has probably been a mug enough to have done one.

 

[RickST]

I get £50 a week from the government which apparently is how much I need to live on... It's free for the company I'm working for, they aren't paying me squat.

fair enough, I assume it is there to attempt to stop people just sitting on their arse with their free money. I am not saying that is what you are doing of course I just like the scheme in general.

Unpaid internships are absolutely ridiculous and should be banned immediately. Anyone who sticks up for them has probably been a mug enough to have done one.

I think they can be valuable for both sides. some graduates still lack the basic skills required for employment and its a useful way for grads to work out exactly what career they want as it seems that many do a degree without a clear goal in mind.

 

[Amp34]

How can a single month be that useful? It's 4 weeks... 20 days. Worth more than your degree? If that really is the case then I'm absolutely amazed. 20 days is nothing at all!

Lets put it another way I have a 3 week "interview" soon and even for that I get "paid" a reasonable amount. How can people actually do months of unpaid work with little chance of an interview at the end?

Even though I think he is overemphasising a bit internships are very useful. My (paid) internship certainly helped me get onto my postgrad course for example.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/09/make-most-of-unpaid-internship?INTCMP=SRCH

To most people, the idea of going to work every day and not being paid is unthinkable. But for thousands of interns, this is the reality. We're not talking about just a couple of weeks' work experiebnce – new research from Interns Anonymous, shows that 26% of interns have done three or more placements and 39% of internships last three months or longer. Campaigners estimate at least 100,000 young people will work as an unpaid intern this year.

People really do several internships? Although that doesn't seem to separate paid and unpaid internships.

Are unpaid internships illegal?

In many cases, yes. There is no legal definition of an intern, but the national minimum wage (NMW) law says that anybody who qualifies as a worker must be paid at least £5.93 an hour if aged 21 and over, rising to £6.08 from 1 October. Do you have set hours and responsibilities? Are you contributing work that's of value to your employer? Then, unless the placement is part of your course, or your employer is a charity, it's likely the company is breaking the law in letting you work for nothing. "It's hard to believe this is illegal when so many companies are doing it, but it is," says Lyons. "This is a breach of UK employment law on an unprecedented scale."

 

[Thunderbolt]

I think they can be valuable for both sides. some graduates still lack the basic skills required for employment and its a useful way for grads to work out exactly what career they want as it seems that many do a degree without a clear goal in mind.

No ones denying the value of work experience. But why a business can't afford to pay at least minimum wage, and thus actually contribute to society is ridiculous.

 

[Evilsod]

It is the only way to 'survive' these days. My 1 month unpaid work experience was worth more than my degree and provided me a full time job. My degree and other experience would not have done that.

If i could go back in time, i would have gone for a degree that had a placement year at least.

I wish I'd done the same thing every day. Year in Industry or simply done summer jobs...

I did one for a month, didn't really achieve much unfortunately but was worth doing. 6 months is just trying to get some sucker to sign up for no pay though.

 

[dowie]

I've heard of these being common in media and fashion (old flatmate was a fashion intern who relied on an inheritance to pay the rent). Part of this must simply be due to there being a lot of demand to get into those industries, people prepared to work unpaid in order to get in the door and as a result its become the norm for most new entrants to the industry to work unpaid for 6 months to 1 year.

I can't quite understand the appeal of working for the local council though - sounds like a really boring job to begin with so **** knows why anyone would want to do it for free.

Interns where I work (well we've only had one or two that I'm aware of though) certainly got paid.

 

[soundb0y]

So after a fair bit of research I have come to the conclusion that my internship may be in breach of employment law?

I have found a lot of websites with help for those in the media industry but nothing for the sector I am "working" in.

What would be my first point of call, CAB? Have read some people have successfully claimed unpaid wages?

I am not sure whether I should confront them with the issues as I am currently hoping to hear of a job offer this week. I have a great relationship with everyone in the office and don't want to tarnish the chance of a potential offer?

Any advice appreciated. I know very little about employment law but will be reading up on it.

 

[Amp34]

TBH I would wait and see if you are offered a job. If the door is slammed in your face then you could then go for the back pay.

Remember though depending on the size of your industry you may not want to do anything that may jeopardize any possible jobs in the future, be that through word of mouth about you or due to you wanting to go back to that company (as an employee or them as a client).

 

[Nix]

Just out of interest Amp, how did you go about finding your paid internship?

 

[Kutter]

What's funny is if a bunch of ****** were offering this it would be called slave labour. If the gov does it, its called an intership.

 

[soundb0y]

TBH I would wait and see if you are offered a job. If the door is slammed in your face then you could then go for the back pay.

Remember though depending on the size of your industry you may not want to do anything that may jeopardize any possible jobs in the future, be that through word of mouth about you or due to you wanting to go back to that company (as an employee or them as a client).

Yes I think that's a good idea, the last thing I want is to ruin any prospects.

I'm not even sure they are aware of the legislation which is surprising given the industry they operate in.

 

[G J]

I'll may be looking to do work experience like this in the near future, after finishing my HNC I can't even get my foot in the door after finishing last September.

I'm in the no experience no job... well how do I get experience vicious circle. I could go back to college/uni and do the degree but at the end of it I'm still going to be in the same situation but 3k+ further in debt.

 

[Amp34]

Just out of interest Amp, how did you go about finding your paid internship?

A careers fair at Plymouth, an Earth Science specific one not the generic one. Just spoke to one of the people on one of the stalls for a while about their company and was told they were recruiting interns for the summer and to send my CV in.

 

[Abraham]

People seem to be muddling the potential use of it to the intern and company with the legality of it, the majority of them are still illegal, work experience is the type of thing you do in school, generally just observing, maybe getting involved but probably of marginal if any benefit to the company, anything beyond this should see you getting paid or is illega.

 

[Thunderbolt]

The university I went to had an internship program for graduates where the uni would contribute £125 a week to pay you, and the company would have to at least match that. I very almost did that myself.
I believe the university may do it to improve their graduate employment statistics