Is YOUR child being used as a work experience slave?
With competition for jobs at an all-time high, young people are now PAYING for work experience — only to be treated as skivvies. Femail went undercover to investigate
winning a pay- out, Keri is still paying off her credit card bill and expects to be doing so for the next six months.
‘The initial internship description was very different from my actual role,’ says Keri.
‘I had a lot of work to do, and the company was making money out of me. We were like hamsters on a wheel, making everything work, but getting no credit whatsoever. I got really stressed and hugely frustrating.
‘Employers think they can get away with using interns on the cheap because what constitutes work is not universally known. It’s a grey area.’
Michelle Wyer, assistant director of the minimum wage department at the HMRC, acknowledges: ‘We know young people are at risk of
it was not being paid what they are legally entitled to, which is why we are working . . . to ensure they are paid what they are owed.’
However, many businesses seem blithely unaware of the law.
‘A lot of places begin with the right intentions, but then go on to expect more from the intern without realising they are crossing legal boundaries,’ says Keri. ‘What is, and isn’t, acceptable needs to be made clearer.’
In December, Elle UK online posted a piece in defence of the fashion industry’s use of interns by fashion designer Cozette Mccreery, saying: ‘If there were a compulsory minimum wage, we would have to restructure our company. We need the workforce.’
Of course, there is a compulsory minimum wage. Mccreery goes on: ‘[The fashion industry’s] . . . first step in filtering out people is the idea that if someone wants this enough, they will be willing to do this for free, which is a pretty despicable attitude . . . But it’s a traditional thing in fashion.’
In many industries — especially the competitive field of fashion — this is a typical attitude: because I had to work for free, so should you.
While researching this article, I spoke to a woman who had been an intern at Sotheby’s. She’d spent three months in London and five months at the art auction company’s office in Madrid. She received no expenses, no money towards flights and no pay, despite dealing with clients and being given a level of responsibility.
She estimates the five months abroad cost her £4,500 in rent, living costs and flights. ‘By the end I was miserable,’ she said. ‘I know you can’t expect much pay in the art world, but this was a joke.’
A spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said the intern would have known what to expect because she signed a contract detailing that she wouldn’t be paid.
And what about those who can’t afford to work for free, let alone pay hundreds of pounds of their own money for work experience?
Surely it’s unfair that talented individuals from less affluent backgrounds are excluded from work experience simply because they don’t have rich parents to subsidise their living costs.
Worth, not birth, should determine careers, and employers are shooting themselves in the foot as they miss out on talent.
I read online about an internship for a small marketing company called Haiti73, which has looked after brands such as L’oreal and the band, the Noisettes.
I went along for an interview for a three- month unpaid internship, which meant working full-time from 9am until 6pm without expenses.
AGNES CAZIN, who runs the company, explained: ‘I used to reimburse for lunch and travel, but a lot of my interns quit halfway through, so it seemed a waste of money.’
She warned me I would be monitoring accounts, chasing invoices, liaising with clients, organising photo shoots, accompanying clients to red carpet events, as well as helping secure celebrities such as Daphne Guinness front row seats at a Paris fashion show for label Paco Rabanne.
Cazin, like Mccreery, believes it is unreasonable for interns to expect payment for their time.
‘ I put in the hours so you should, too,’ she tells me at the interview. ‘ Everyone should do a six-month internship before they can expect a wage.’
The benefits of the placement, she told me, were networking, help with my CV, experience dealing with clients and one paid (£300) week of work in Paris during fashion week.
But I was also warned that there would be no chance of a job with her at the end of the placement because Cazin wasn’t expanding the business.
The previous two interns before me had been with her for four and six months respectively, and both had managed to secure lucrative jobs using the contacts they’d made during their placements.
Labour MP Hazel Blears, one of an increasing number of politicians speaking out in this debate, is worried. ‘We are finding that work experience is being extended into months, and that the line between work experience and an internship is being blurred,’ she says.
‘ Too often it’s young people . . . from lower-income families who are exploited by companies offering unpaid internships.’
Of course, she’s right. Work experience and internships play a vital role in bridging the gap between education and a first job. It’s a way for employers to identify fresh talent, and a means for the intern to learn on-the-job skills and confirm career choices.
But the Government needs to work harder to safeguard these positions to ensure opportunities remain for all, and not just for the well-off or the well-connected.
Back at the salon, I’m sweeping hair again. The owner, who took my £195, snaps his fingers and points at a few wisps of hair I’ve missed, barely breaking away from his conversation with a client.
I look at my watch. A whole afternoon of cleaning looms.
Later, a junior stylist jokes: ‘You have to be bonkers to be a hairdresser.’
I bite my lip. It seems, sadly, that the same can be said for interns, too.