Interns – a necessary part of the new economy: good training or genteel slavery?
A recent ad from Wandsworth Council asked for trainee social workers to work for free, selling the idea as good for their CV. It sparked some debate in Labour councillor circles and I am interested in where you stand on the issue. We all know of sites like Work4MP where the expectation is frequently that the “job” you get will be an expenses only internship. Is this a scandal, which all MPs should avoid like the plague or is it a useful source of on the job training?
Starting from the perspective of a 1960s graduate, the idea of unpaid work training appears outrageous. The fact that it might be acceptable today shows just how we have allowed the markets to over-ride our ability to organise society. It also is an expression of the regrettable powerlessness of the trade union movement. One inevitably asks whether there is any limit to the power of the market – suppose market forces and a combination of globalisation and automation results in demand for labour being on a permanently downward trend – are we going to see this generation go from being 20 year old interns to 30 and 40 year old interns?
However, younger colleagues argue that there is nothing wrong with internships, especially when otherwise we would have to pay the bill (a dispute as to whether Battersea LP should pay our intern the national minimum wage (NMW)), and if it helps the intern to get something on their CV and a start to a career. But to me this argument seems self-serving as it actually implies that we are not prepared to pay the real price of our politics or (if the intern works for Tesco) the real price of our groceries.
It also seems to me that the use of interns is massively against equal opportunities with only the affluent, OK the comfortably well-off, being able to fund their kids to go through internship. Indeed one of my Labour colleagues is very open about it and, I quote, says “from frustrating personal experience of trying to start a career in politics 10 years ago – these opportunities are by their nature exclusive to those who have parents wealthy enough to support them. I’m generally opposed to totally unpaid internships for this reason.”
Ben, for it was he, went on to say that “social work degrees, like other professional degree level qualifications (teaching), include a lot of practical experience through placements – that’s much of the point of the course. Would you expect NQTs to do free teaching placements too? Or people with nursing degrees? ….. The obvious question therefore is, are these really training posts – and in which case how do the positions differ from the placements that newly qualified social workers will have undertaken as part of their formal training? If not, then this looks like getting people to work for free”. To which I might add that I doubt whether too many bankers, civil engineers or military folk are expected to start their training on a volunteer basis, though I understand that the Met Police is going that way.
Another of my colleagues argued that the training Wandsworth was going to give was of high quality to which my reply is that I am sure that is so but that it is straight discrimination against the truly less well-off just like any free internship is.
My conclusion is that it is all part of the generational warfare that we of an older (and if you are over 40 maybe even 30 that includes you) generation look like starting having had our free education, a vast range of career choices, good pensions, the NHS, owner occupied housing and now refusing to pay our taxes for following generations. We will only have ourselves to blame if the young are revolting!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 