Please leave a comment if you would like to participate in the discussion – let’s try, raise awareness and be the seed of change. Thank you.
Note: Thankfully I’m not affected by this phenomenon. But I do think it a disgrace that the Freentern phenomenon exists at all.
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Dear Chicks,
on this e-mail-list, dedicated to all things sustainability, numerous organisations regularly look for interns. Or rather freeintern.
The characteristic of such position always tends to be the same:
– Relatively high skill / experiences demanded
– No pay, or barely any to cover expenses (10£ a day in London does NOT
cover expenses incurred by lunch and travel)
– Supposedly an opportunity to ‘grow’ the CV
– Not even marginally an opportunity that the position will, once the the intern term is over, become either paid freelance or a regular paid position.
The organisations I’ve been seeing announcing such positions – ON THIS MAILING LIST – have come from all sectors, but interestingly not-for-profit and charities are dominant.
I would very much want to appeal to these organisations to stop such practise immediately.
– It is a human-rights infringement AND a labour-law infringement to not pay people in accordance to their skill, and promising them some virtual benefit in the future. Often knowing from the beginning that the promises cannot be kept.
– If such practise is acceptable because we’re in the UK (or Europe, or …) then it is racism, because it would mean the same rights that we campaign for for workers overseas, do not apply in the UK
– It is plainly unfair to expect the interns, or volunteers as some cynically call them, too, to work 2 jobs in order to support themselves financially, AND to support the organisation they intern with – directly
through work, and indirectly by paying their own rent etc. without getting decent financial support.
– And finally, for students as well as people made redundant, not being paid for their labour, simply means that only persons with a wealthy family background will be able to do such type of internships in most
cases. Which is not a good thing – I just throw the key words ‘class divide’ or ‘class mobility’ into the discussion.
I would strongly appeal to everyone reading this, specifically the decision makers in not-for-profit and charities, to review their strategy. If an organisation cannot pay for a good day’s work, but at the same
time the work cannot be done by few-hours-a-week-volunteers – then maybe, something fundamentally is wrong to start, and rather than rely on cheap labour, financial and strategic management issues should be brought to the table.
Kind regards,
Pamela Ravasio
