Campaign for interns' rights launched

A campaign has been launched by intern rights group Intern Aware to promote fairer access to the internship system.

The campaign arises out of the Government’s recent report ‘Unleashing Aspirations: The Final Report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions’ chaired by former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn.

In it, Milburn stated, “Completing an internship is a great way to gain experience, confidence and knowledge about the world of work. In an increasingly competitive jobs market employers increasingly expect to see that candidates have interned in their chosen field.”

However, the report noted: “The cost of undertaking an internship can put many people off. Internships are often low-paid or not paid at all. Those with the least financial resources are less likely to be in a position to forgo the opportunity to earn more in order to undertake an internship.”

The report found that you are less likely to be able to do an internship if:

• You lack the means to work for free (socio-economic factors),
• You lack the means to travel or live near to the internship (geographic factors),
• You come from a background in which a professional internship is never considered or discussed (information factors).

Intern Aware is:

• Calling on the government to remove loopholes from minimum wage legislation which allows employers to ask interns to work for free.
• Calling on individuals and employers to ensure that they offer remuneration on internship schemes, to promote fairness and expand their pool of potential employees.
• Calling on organisations committed to social justice to put their values into action by ensuring that they are at the forefront of modernising their employment practices.

A recent survey of 2,000 students by student job site Studentgems found that 16% have worked unpaid hours for an employer in the last year in order to gain experience in their chosen field, while 86% of the students surveyed were not aware that it was illegal for employers to give them work experience, but not pay them.

Last year, an Employment Tribunal ruled that workers engaged on an expenses-only basis are entitled to payment at least in line with the national minimum wage, in addition to payment for the holiday they accrue.

One of the new chapters in Workplace Law's brand new Employment Law and Human Resources Handbook 2010 focuses on Work experience, internships and apprenticeships, and outlines employers' legal responsibilities when it comes to issues related to internships such as:

• worker status;
• working time;
• minimum wage;
• discrimination; and
• whistleblowing.