Recently, internships have been painted in a rather negative light in the media, with employment law solicitors and campaigners claiming that they are exploitative and in some cases, illegal. Employment law solicitors might take the moral high ground and call it exploitation, but often times, the interns themselves are happy to work on an unpaid basis, calling it experience. So who is right?
Some industries are better known than others for their use of internships. One such industry is fashion. Recent press reports have featured former fashion interns who claim they were made to work for months on end, twelve hours and more a day, with no prospects of permanent paid employment to look forward to after the internship. Indeed, some interns claim they have worked for free in fashion houses where they have outnumbered the paid staff. This suggests that many companies, not just in the fashion industry, are relying too heavily on unpaid work by interns.
Employment law solicitors claim that, according to minimum wage legislation, companies could be acting illegally by neglecting to pay their interns. They claim that merely calling somebody an intern does not mean a company doesn’t have to pay them. Legally, if a person is engaged for a long period of time, on a regular basis, carrying out work that is core to a company then they are to be considered an employee and paid fairly and legally. In the past, there have been some cases where former interns have taken their case to the employment tribunal and won backdated minimum wage pay. Unfortunately, such cases were not widely reported and did not set the legal precedent that had been hoped and the situation remains largely the same.
Furthermore, campaigners point out that internships are actually damaging for graduate employment. As more graduates are prepared to work for free, fewer entry level paid positions are available. After all, who would pay a new graduate to do something another graduate would do just as well for free?
Employment law solicitors are working to raise awareness of the need to comply with minimum wage legislation. They are urging lawmakers to consider a fundamental change to the system, perhaps limiting the amount of time for which a company may use unpaid interns. Doing this, they hope would encourage companies to take on their interns on a permanent, paid basis after the initial period.