Nick Clegg laconically declared at the launch of the government’s Social Mobility Strategy in April 2011 “When a child is born, they shouldn’t be condemned by the circumstances of their birth.” His ethical musings continue in a similar manner: “It’s just not right that in Britain today where you’re born, who your parents are, how much they earn, what job they do has a much bigger influence on what you then achieve later in life than any other equivalent country.”
Clegg’s rhetoric is not as baseless and scaremongering as you might expect. In a 2010 economic growth report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) entitled “A Family Affair: Intergeneration Social Mobility” the investigation found; “In southern European countries, the United Kingdom and Finland, having a father with tertiary education raises a son’s wages by at least 20% or more, compared with a son whose father had upper secondary education.”
This same interim report however did find one glimmer of hope for social mobility in this country; it concluded that education was the greatest means of social mobility. Even with headlines such as “Priced out of university by soaring fees” (Daily Mail: 31st January 2012), “Philanthropy steps in as the state retreats” (Guardian: 13th July 2012) and “Tuition fee hike ‘puts 15,000 teenagers off university’” (The Telegraph: 9th August 2012) the truth about higher education still stands.
In our current economic climate however, nothing is ever that simple – no longer is it enough to work hard at A-Level, study at a reputable university and seamlessly transcend into the upper echelons of the graduate world. The formerly insoluble bond between “education” and “employment” slowly withers away under rising youth employment and one of the biggest threats to employment facing graduates: unpaid internships.
The law on workers is clear. Under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 a worker is entitled to national minimum wage unless they fall under certain exceptions. Section 54 (3) defines a worker as “an individual who has entered into work” either through (a) “a contract of employment” or (b) “any other contract, whether express or implied […] whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract.” If you have set hours, duties and are performing “real work” (not merely shadowing) you are a worker and entitled to the national minimum wage. Companies are exploiting ignorance, employment fears and a lack of legal definition of an intern to breach employment law on an unparalleled extent.
When speaking to NUS Vice President (Society and Citizenship) Dannie Grufferty about unpaid internships, she criticised the very term itself: “The plight of young people today with millions of them not in employment or education is not helped with the jargon of the unpaid internship. It is literally a term plucked out of the sky so employers can avoid paying people, often when they first enter the world of work.”
Having undertaken an unpaid internship for the entire summer, third-year York student Megan Cross worked for nine weeks at a consultancy: “It was an opportunity to live in a completely different city and living a life that was poles apart from the average routine of an English Literature student. I was also lucky enough to secure an offer for a job with the company after I graduate as well as priceless advice and a fantastic reference. Despite the blow to my bank account, I would recommend the experience to any student who wants to be put in the best position possible in the competitive world of graduate recruitment.”
Although Megan has benefited from the spate of unpaid work, the tragedy of this experience is that, in reality, it’s only open to a select number of students. She admits that the bursary available certainly wouldn’t cover the cost of living in London and without the use of a family friend’s house she would have been faced with the difficult task of commuting from home or forgoing the internship entirely.
Far from simply giving up an entire summer to work unpaid, some students have turned to taking work experience during term time for months on end. Natalie*, enrolled in the UK but currently on her year abroad, is spending a year working unpaid in the European parliament: “I’m just so worried about employment it seemed the only thing I could – I know that a good degree and fluency in three languages won’t be enough to get me a job in politics, so I’ve resigned myself to just putting up with menial task so I can get something more on my CV. I’ve had to turn down part-time jobs here and often miss university.”
Robert Mead, a third-year student at the University of Nottingham, is one of the many students who aren’t able to take on unpaid work due to where they live and work: “I can’t even complain about being exploited since I can’t afford to give up paid work in the first place. The more I learn about unpaid internships the more I think they’re just a cancer on graduate employment.”
National campaigns such as Intern Aware are taking on the exploiters of unpaid internship. Ben Lyon, Co-Director, says: “It’s just about getting enough so you can afford to do it. It shouldn’t be free labour – it should be about getting new ideas, sparking interests and ultimately bringing new people into the business.” Shockingly, since the National Wage Act’s introduction in 1998 HMRC have only made eight prosecutions in relation to the entire act. Intern Aware receives more tips-offs and pleas for help than in a month than HMRC claim to receive in an entire year. Ben even suggests that unpaid internships work to sabotage a business by narrowing the people entering the field saying, “Thinking of recruitment, they should want to be employing the right people – there’s no meritocratic process in unpaid internships.”
Universities seem to share Ben’s concern with meritocracy. Institutes such as Manchester and York offer paid internships through their career services. York even goes so far as to offer a mentoring scheme for alumni allowing individuals to offer career advice and paid internships to current students. The University of Birmingham offers some of the most comprehensive support for students, offering bursaries of up to £2000. Given that a vast swathe of internships are located in London, where a month’s living can dwarf the amount a student lives on per term at university, the university is one of the few that understands the plight of unpaid internships.
Intern Aware, however, are still encouraging and working with university career services to do much more to combat unpaid internships: “We’ve got to work with some services to help them make the changes. We recently worked with Oxford, Exeter and Bristol, and many others have been persuaded to stop advertising unpaid work all together.” Ben’s suggestion that university career services disregard and neglect the role is far from hyperbole or overzealous rhetoric; ironically, career services are propagating the existence of unpaid internships by advertising them. If these services used the significant power they have it would incentivise companies; not just because it’s the right thing to do but because there’s real pressure being applied.
PR is one example of an industry in more need than others of a diversity galvanisation. Thankfully, this is one of the rare occasions where the industry itself recognises and is trying to remedy its own problems. Together with Intern Aware, a comprehensive breakdown of internships within the industry has been produced. 61% of internships are in London and despite being the most expensive city in the UK 72% of interns are illegally paid less than NMW with 23% of that group receiving no expenses.
Worryingly, despite the huge number of young people working for less than NMW in the industry 77% of internships did not lead to employment in the same organisation. Francis Ingham, PRCA Chief Executive, said: “Internships are not just a vital route into PR for young graduates, but a vital resource for employers as well. We need to avoid the easy option and accept that interns deserve to be paid for the service they provide.”
We want the invaluable training. We want the real experience. And we want legal paid experience to be available to as many people as possible – not just those who can afford to work for free. This is uncivilised social engineering just by another name – “unpaid internships.”
*name changed for confidentiality.