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A degree in slavery: The highly-educated graduates forced to work for nothing for MPs, celebrities and even charities
By Paul Bracchi
Last updated at 1:12 AM on 26th February 2011
‘This is a great opportunity,’ the advert says, ‘for someone interested in understanding the practical implications of government policy. The role will involve assisting with casework, advice surgeries, meetings and other general administration.’
And the salary? ‘None’; not a penny.
The successful applicant will be paid expenses — £5 per day ‘max’ (yes, the word ‘max’ really was included in the advert). Enough for a sandwich perhaps, but unless you live within walking distance of Simon Hughes’s local party HQ, you will already be out of pocket by the time you arrive at your desk; a daily travel card on the Underground can cost £8.
'Salary: None' are the two most common words on the W4MP online noticeboard, along with 'expences only'
‘I would love to pay them more,’ the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats has been quoted as saying, ‘but the budgets we work within are tightly controlled and do not currently allow that.’
An isolated case? Hardly.
Wanted: Intern for Don Foster, Lib Dem MP, Bath. ‘The successful candidate will possess excellent oral and written and communication skills, the ability to prioritise tasks and work to deadlines, a willingness to undertake research, a demonstrable interest in, and knowledge of, local politics.’
Salary: None.
Wanted: Intern for David Laws, Lib Dem MP, Yeovil. Tasks may include ‘drafting correspondence to MPs, government departments and constituents, drafting press releases, preparing briefings, liaising with David’s constituency office, general office administration’.
Salary: None.
Indeed, ‘Salary: None’ are the two most common words on the W4MP (work for MP) online noticeboard, along with ‘expenses only’.
In all, at least 11 Liberal Democrat MPs, the politicians who shout the loudest about fairness and injustice in society, are advertising for ‘expenses only’ interns.
These will join around 450 others — almost all graduates — based in and around Parliament doing about 18,000 hours of unpaid work a week for MPs of all parties which means, on average, each intern is working a 40-hour week.
The cream of a generation are now skivvies
That’s just the average, though; many work much longer hours — up to 14 hours a day or more.
Providing value for the taxpayer is the stock answer (or should that be excuse?) MPs often trot out when they are asked why interns are not even paid the minimum wage. This from the political class who left us to pick up the tab for duck houses, moats, swimming pools, new kitchens, bathrooms, plasma TVs — and porn movies.
Few would deny that, in principle, internships — effectively extended work experience for (mainly) graduates — can be mutually beneficial for degree-holders embarking on their careers and those offering them placements.
But can anyone really deny that the system is now being ruthlessly and shamelessly exploited, both inside Westminster and beyond? Or blame middle-class parents for feeling their expensively educated offspring are being used as little more than genteel slave labour?
Almost a quarter of employers, from every sector of the economy, hired an intern between April and September last year, compared with 13 per cent in 2009, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Behind those bare statistics are stories which reveal how the cream of a generation has been reduced to scrubbing art gallery walls, ironing clothes past midnight in fashion houses, booking restaurants and theatre tickets (and going to the supermarket) for PR executives, skivvying from dawn to dusk at hugely profitable City firms for only ‘reasonable out-of-pocket expenses’.
Tales of abuse, bullying and humiliation abound. Many, including complaints against MPs, are highlighted on a website called Interns Anonymous.
The stories on the site are epitomised by the graduate who worked round the clock for an (unnamed) MP for five arduous months running up to the General Election.
David Laws
Simon Hughes
Don Foster
‘I was promised a job if we won,’ the graduate wrote, ‘which we did. I worked an average six days a week, 10-12 hours a day in the first four months and around 100 hours a week for the last month. I had managerial responsibility for one aspect of the campaign that involved the co-ordination of around 200 people.
‘I was provided with accommodation and a lunch allowance, but over the five months had other expenses too. It cost me money in the end and put me in a difficult financial situation.
‘I was not offered a job, in spite of promises, I am yet to find employment, the “strong reference” is yet to materialise, and I do not receive any help from the now Member of Parliament.’
Another intern hired by the Liberal Democrats, we have been told, suffered a nervous breakdown because of the pressure he was put under.
Could there be a more damning indictment, not just of the MPs in question but also the whole culture of internships?
Once upon a time, interns were an American phenomenon associated with the glamour of Washington; that was before the recession began to bite and companies and organisations here saw the system as an easy way of reducing costs.
Paid jobs that would have previously gone to graduates in the private and public sectors alike were scrapped and replaced by internships that cost nothing.
By law, interns who work rather than merely shadow or observe should be paid a wage, but who is going to complain and risk not getting a ‘reference’, or possible job offer? Even if, as we have already seen, often interns end up with neither.
One in five graduates — 80,000, or 18.5 per cent — who left university in the past two years is still on the dole, the highest level for more than a decade. For every paid job vacancy, there are now 70 applicants.
'I felt like dirt in Stella McCartney's press office'
Competition for internships is just as fierce.
Hence the growing number of ‘recruitment agencies’ offering companies a never-ending supply of graduates. They charge a fee of about £500 for each intern provided.
Employers are left in no doubt about the benefits of hiring interns. ‘Full-time employees require salaries, bonuses, payroll taxes etc,’ declares one such agency.
Interns cost nothing. But the consequences for graduates from poorer families are potentially devastating.
Already saddled with crippling student debt, unpaid work is the last thing they want — but it often seems their only hope of climbing the career ladder. The situation is hardly helped by the emergence of so-called ‘intern auctions’, where placements at this or that firm are sold to the highest bidder.
One was staged at the Tories’ recent Black and White ball attended by David Cameron and his wife Samantha, when millionaire Tory supporters paid about £3,000 each for internships for their children at top finance companies and banks to raise funds for the party. After heavy criticism, the Prime Minister is to ban these events in future.
Also charities, we have learned, are using the auction tactic.
Among them is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which recently hired Christie’s for such an event. One of the ‘lots’ that went under the hammer: a month-long internship at the NSPCC itself. It sold for £4,500.
Director of fundraising Paul Amadi told us it provided someone ‘with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills that will help them pursue their future career’.
For a hefty fee, of course, which ruled out all but the children of the very wealthy.
The charity’s decision to auction off the post is particularly dubious given that the NSPCC received more than £116 million in ‘donations, gifts and legacies’ last year.
Would £166 million minus £4,500 have really made a jot of difference?
The NSPCC is not the only unlikely organisation to come in for criticism. Another is UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) which is offering a ‘voluntary internship’ (no salary, in plain English) at its London office.
‘If you do not hear from us within 14 days of the closing date [last Monday] please assume your application has been unsuccessful,’ candidates were informed, meaning that most will not even be afforded the common courtesy of a reply.
Furthermore, only ‘online applications’ — as opposed to CVs — would be accepted ‘as this saves us money, making more funds available for us to help ensure children’s rights’.
The ad was posted on Interns Anonymous next to the following comment: ‘This really takes the p***. Unbelievable. What about paying your ******* staff?’
Would anyone really disagree with that blunt assessment?
Those who do take up such internships often report being treated like ‘dogsbodies’.
Take graduate Maryam Delavar from Surrey. She was doing a masters degree in business studies when she joined a City wealth management firm as an intern. Miss Delavar, 28, was not offered a job at the end of her placement. When she asked why, she was told it was because she had not cleared away pizza boxes after an England World Cup match was watched in the office.
Or take Eleanor Goodwin. She was 21 when she graduated with a 2:1 in graphic design and photography from Kingston University last summer. She spent five months at a gallery in Central London.
‘I did very little except act as a gallery attendant working 10am to 6pm with no lunch break,’ she said. ‘It was five months wasted. To top it all, I asked for a reference after I left and they couldn’t even be bothered to reply to my numerous emails. Without a reference, I can’t even put it on my CV.’
Tales of bullying, humiliation and abuse abound
Another female graduate, who wished to remain anonymous, was also an intern at a London gallery.
‘I was supposed to be there for three months full-time, but only stuck it out for a month,’ she said. ‘They used their interns as free labour, not even paying travel expenses. The jobs I did included cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the gallery, painting the walls, and scrubbing the outside of the building.
‘I even had to travel around London collecting and dropping off deliveries — at my own expense! There was a time when I had to collect a huge, very heavy box and they refused to pay for a taxi, so I had to lug it from the other side of London on the Tube, putting my back out.’
Or take the young woman who posted this account on Interns Anonymous. She worked in the press office of a leading fashion designer.
‘I felt as if I was dirt on the floor. My work was never appreciated. We would have to work from 9am until late. I tried to leave no later than eight because my boyfriend was getting upset I was being taken advantage of.
‘I know other interns who would work until midnight steaming clothes and mailing envelopes — unpaid — and they started at 9am. I eventually left after two weeks because I didn’t like the way they were treating me and other interns.’
Stella McCartney's intern: 'I felt as if I was dirt on the floor. My work was never appreciated. We would have to work from 9am until late. I tried to leave no later than eight because my boyfriend was getting upset I was being taken advantage of'
Guess whose press office she was referring to? It was Stella McCartney’s.
This is not the end of the story.
After her version of events was posted on Interns Anonymous, the administrators behind the website received a call from someone high up at Stella McCartney’s.
‘He told me he would make life very difficult for me at work, basically insinuating he would try to get me sacked from my job in PR,’ said one of the administrators. ‘I didn’t want to get sued, so I took down the post.
‘Then he started making threats to everyone who had “re-tweeted” the story on Twitter. I got emails that night from all sorts of people saying they had got random phone calls and emails laced with legal threats.’
A spokesperson denied badly treating interns and said that out of the six permanent positions made available in the past year, five had been filled by interns, who were still ‘fully employed’ with the company.
‘Unfortunately, I guess it didn’t work out with that particular intern who stayed for less than two weeks last autumn,’ said the spokesperson.
The graduate at the centre of the controversy also received a call from someone in the company that reduced her to tears.
‘I was unpaid and exploited,’ she said. ‘Slave labour should have ended in the 1800s. Unfortunately it didn’t.
A view shared by too many interns to dismiss.
Additional reporting: Nic North and Tim Stewart
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