Bisulfide

The TUC has recently raised its voice against employers who are engaging in an illegal practice of not paying their interns whose search of experience are being rampantly exploited. According to the TUC, there are thousands of students who are being subjected to this kind of harassment in the country. Furthermore, the TUC revealed to the BBC, there are cases where employers have asked prospective interns to pay a fee fees if they wish to earn work experience.

In the arts and media industries, it is quite commonplace for interns to work without any pay but now this practice is gradually being adopted by engineering and IT industries among others. Paul Sellers of TUC has said that some of these employers are not aware that this practice is illegal but there are others who have adopted this practice with the vindictive motive of duping these young students.

The fact that most of these students who go to employers in search of internships are also not aware of the legalities of payments to interns is clear from a survey conducted by Studentgems, an Internet student job portal. Out of the 2000 students who participated in the survey, eighty-six percent of the respondents said that they did not know that employers could not hire them as interns and not pay them. Sixteen percent of the students also confirmed that some time in the past year, they had worked without pay because they were keen on gaining professional work experience.

The violation of law was further confirmed by the Employment Tribunal. Last November, in the context of a case, the tribunal ruled that all employers have to pay their apprentices in accordance with the national minimum wage even if they are hired on an expenses only basis. In addition to this, they will be paid for the holidays that they accrue while at work.

The importance of this issue can be understood by the fact that in the new Employment Law and Human Resources Handbook 2010, there is a special chapter dedicated to the problems related to work experience, internships and apprenticeships. The handbook also mentions the legally binding responsibilities of employers in this regard.

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