“Don’t Pay for Work, Work for Pay”

Internships provide invaluable experience and a transition from education to career in an ideal world; however it seems they come at a great cost to those interning. With publishing company Condé Nast having to pay £3.71 mil to former interns in a low-pay lawsuit, does this mean the UK could be in a for a change as well?

Employment legislation currently states that if an intern does regular paid work for an employer, they may qualify as an employee and be eligible to the National Minimum Wage, yet some employers are still promoting unpaid internships. Mark Watson who leads a campaign to secure the Minimum Wage for interns whom are being used as free labour said it’s becoming more apparent however that larger businesses are learning that “interns do have rights and can turn around and bite back if they are treated badly.”

Laura Roll, 24, graduated from university and landed an idyllic internship for a graphic design company, she soon found out it wasn’t the dream chance she had been hoping for; “I got the internship through an advert which promised good experience and networking opportunities, it sounded so promising. It was only after about a month that it dawned on me that I had been taken on to replace someone who had been fired – I was basically a really cheap replacement. I guess I did learn some valuable things but I didn’t get paid a penny for doing work. I know so many of my friends and people from uni are all in the same boat and just like me they had no idea they should’ve been paid.”

Working for expenses-only internships can be challenging enough but no pay whatsoever leaves some struggling but there is still hope as former interns Keri Hudson and Nicola Vetta both previously fought back and won cases against large firms TPG Web Publishing Limited and London Dreams for unpaid internships. Whilst this is encouraging others to stand up for what they are legally entitled to, Watson says more still needs to be done: “I don’t think this issue can rely on the essential decency of politicians either to be resolved, it is more likely to come about because the pressure of opinion becomes too large to ignore.

“That chorus of disapproval has been growing for some time now and with big pressure groups like The Sutton Trust and The Social Mobility Commission getting behind the issue; it is getting harder for nothing to happen. Interns themselves have a very large part to play as well - the more that people protest and campaign, the more likely it is that things will change!” said Watson.