National Minimum Wage

National Minimum Wage
4.40 The majority of the evidence on interns we received
for this report has again been from trade unions, intern “Unpaid internships exploit
groups and interns themselves. This has highlighted those who do them and
that unpaid work is still a major issue, whether it be those who can’t afford to do
called internship, work experience or volunteering. them. In terms of helping the
Their experience was that such unpaid positions were position of young people in the
still on the increase. These stakeholders repeated calls
for better guidance and enforcement of the existing
minimum wage rules.
labour market, unpaid work
isn’t a solution, it’s part of the
problem.”
4.41 The submission by the Graduate and Interns Alliance
(GAIA – made up of Interns Anonymous, Intern Aware
and Internocracy), along with evidence from a number
of others, provided examples of hundreds of jobs
being offered for no pay, very low pay or expenses
Tanya de Grunwald
(GraduateFog) oral evidence
only. A number of individual interns, or their families, told us of their experiences. These were
typically graduates, unable to access one of the professions without undertaking unpaid
work, which they could not afford. They found that entry level posts had been largely
replaced by a requirement to first undertake an unpaid period of work experience.
4.42 There was generally strong support for the Commission’s
2011 Report recommendation. The National Union of “There is no shortage of
Students said the Commission should continue to employers happy to flout the
recommend that strong action was taken to enforce law because they are able to
the minimum wage and to avoid exploitation of young get away with it. Until this
workers. Many stakeholders, however, called for is tackled, with high profile
stronger action by the enforcement body against
penalties, we are not sure things
unpaid work, as well as supporting good guidance.
will change very much.”
Equity suggested enforcement would be enhanced if
unions and other bodies could take representative and National Union of Journalists
group cases to an Employment Tribunal, as it believed oral evidence
many workers were too afraid to take a case
themselves. Another proposal, supported by the TUC
and others, was to outlaw the advertising of jobs paid below the NMW. Others suggested
HMRC should follow up on employers advertising work paid below the NMW, and also take
action against the hosting sites themselves. Some urged greater support for more
prosecutions and a wider publication of them. GAIA suggested HMRC target those
companies that ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ interns.
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