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Reasonable, or she’s a gobshite?

Labour’s shadow chancellor had three students working for her office while only paying them expenses, in what critics have dubbed “unpaid internships”, The Telegraph can reveal.

Rachel Reeves paid the students travel and lunch expenses

If this is “come and stuff envelopes in the Commons for a few days to see what it’s like” student internship then fine. Lunch and Tube pass. For that will of course include tea on the terrace, and vistors gallery and all sorts of other fun stuff.

But Ms Reeves’ office has argued that the positions do not amount to “unpaid interns” because the students involved are on work placement and get maintenance support.

Students – for an academic year?

Now that’s gobshite, yes.

26 thoughts on “Reasonable, or she’s a gobshite?”

  1. “on work placement and get maintenance support.”
    That sounds suspiciously like the taxpayer’s subsiding them?

  2. @BiS: Yes. It seems like it exactly that, a full-time course of study at a UK university that includes a year of work placement. The problem being of course that the rules around student finance (at least in England) explicitly allow it for:

    Student Finance England – Work Placements

    • unpaid service with a Special Health Authority, the NHS Commissioning Board, the National Institute for Care and Excellence, the Health and Social Care Information Centre, a Local Health Board; a Health Board or a Special Health Board in Scotland, or a Health and Social
    Services Board in Northern Ireland; or

    • unpaid service in the UK Parliament.

    As you suggest, seems like a taxpayer subsidy to me, until proven otherwise.

  3. It does sound like hypocrisy, but can’t people choose if they want to do work for free or not? No-one complains about people knocking on doors for political parties being unpaid. Or helping at a soup kitchen. Or killing spiders for their girlfriends.

    I would say for certain that working in a company writing code for a year unpaid would do more for you than a year doing a computer science degree unpaid. Both pay nothing but an actual year of work makes your CV more valuable.

  4. So they need keeping an eye on. One jot of work not directly related to Reeves’ Parliamentary duties, shop her for fraud.

  5. See, that’s where the supposed right really don’t understand how the game’s played. Get one of your student activists ( there’s a hope isn’t i?) to sign up for the job. When Reeves asks them to do something that’s party, record the incident. She gets bubbled for misuse of resources, which she hotly denies. Then you play the evidence. Stitch up. Henceforth she’s the “thieving Rachel Reeves” in all your press statements.

  6. It does sound like hypocrisy, but can’t people choose if they want to do work for free or not?

    The problem is that by not paying an adequate wage you are essentially excluding the poor from such opportunities, whereas Toby and Jocasta can just get mummy and daddy to provide them with subsidised housing and an allowance for travel, etc.

    This was why there has been a widespread campaign to outlaw unpaid internships both in the private sector and public.

    After all, we do want our democratic institutions open to everyone? not just those with rich parents?

  7. Get one of your student activists ( there’s a hope isn’t i?) to sign up for the job.

    @BiS – We both know that these roles aren’t genuinely open, it might not say “Only relatives of Labour glitterati” need apply, but that’s what the selection process actually ensures.

  8. John,

    “The problem is that by not paying an adequate wage you are essentially excluding the poor from such opportunities, whereas Toby and Jocasta can just get mummy and daddy to provide them with subsidised housing and an allowance for travel, etc.”

    Great. Toby and Jocasta’s parents subsidise whatever pointless wank that Rachel Reeves’ office does.

    “After all, we do want our democratic institutions open to everyone? not just those with rich parents?”

    You can stand for local government for free, or £500 to stand for parliament. It’s well within most people’s reach.

  9. FFS Mr Galt! Infiltrate. That’s how the usual suspects have hollowed out all of the country’s institutions. That’s how the game’s played. Fucking cricketing public schoolboys! Don’t know their arses from their elbows.

  10. Bloke in the Fourth Reich

    “The problem is that by not paying an adequate wage you are essentially excluding the poor from such opportunities, whereas Toby and Jocasta can just get mummy and daddy to provide them with subsidised housing and an allowance for travel, etc.”

    This is the whole point! We can’t have our democratic institutions falling into the hands of the demos, can we?

  11. If I want to get really depressed I go read Samizdata. A bunch of tossers debating how many 18th century philosophers can dance on the head of a pin. I don’t think there’s ever been a single useful idea for achieving their aims in the entire history of the site.

  12. @ Snag
    Because expenses get scrutinised. No doubt what she’s getting is free gofers she can use for anything she wants. Who’s going to say anything?

  13. @ Bloke on M4

    “killing spiders for their girlfriends.”

    Seems a cruel form of entertainment, but fair play to the chap if he has multiple girlfriends

  14. Bloke in North Dorset

    BoM4,

    “ It does sound like hypocrisy, but can’t people choose if they want to do work for free or not? No-one complains about people knocking on doors for political parties being unpaid. Or helping at a soup kitchen. Or killing spiders for their girlfriends.”

    No, people can’t work for free except for charities. This does look like Parliament exempting itself from NMW laws and that’s from a party that has a faction demanding £15 NMW or living wage as they now disingenuously call it.

  15. BiND,

    Oh, I’m not questioning whether she’s breaking the law or not. Just the general thing of why it’s OK for a charity to pay £0/hr, but no-one else.

    Back when I was a youth, I used to do a little crowd marshalling at Silverstone. I got paid £5 for the whole day, got a free lunch, but the real benefit is that you got to watch the racing for free.

    I help out at a local business group. I’m not getting paid, but people get to know me which might lead to work, and I’d rather socialise with business people than most of the timewasters in charities.

  16. “Or killing spiders for their girlfriends.”
    Seems harsh. I deport spiders unharmed to a random location.

  17. “No, people can’t work for free except for charities.”

    So it’s illegal to donate your time now? How has this happened? When am I going to get shopped for mowing my neighbour’s lawn, weeding the back lane, putting out my Mum’s bins, delivering brochures for the Christmas Fair?

  18. @jgh It’s illegal to engage in a “professional relationship” without recompense.
    There’s a large grey area where peeps/authorities don’t care, but as soon as HRM ( or equivalent) gets involved you’re talking about a “proper job” ( for a given value of…, given the nature of the example in the article..), which needs to be paid.

    Dunno how it is in the UK, but here in Clogland you’re allowed to do unpaid work for a max of 16 hours a week. And they do check..

  19. Grikath/BiND

    What are you guys talking about?

    What regulations? If I want to help someone (even help a company, I might know the owners/directors?), what on earth is there to prevent me doing that. All the Revenue care about is that I declare my (actual) income to them? What did I miss during my nap (in the UK, don’t care about the Reich)?

  20. *sigh*…

    PF.. you can donate any amount of time/labour you want. No-one is ever going to stop you, and the chance the busybodies are going to meddle is minimal to nonexistent.
    Because those regs are not meant for the people who donate their time, but for the companies/organisations that abuse the willingness of people to donate their time.

    Y’know.. the “Unpaid Trial Periods” ( yes, there’s asshats that try to pull that one..) , “Internships for Experience”, “Exposure/Resume Opportunities”, and others of that ilk that are nothing more than envelope stuffing/coffee making/paper sorting/floor sweeping that can just as well be done by someone currently on the dole for minimum wage.
    Exactly like the example in the article.

    And lawmaking being what it is, especially laws that are entangled in the swamp of labour regulations, it’s far easier to enact a blanket ban with specific exceptions and a bit of elbow room for Putting Out The Neighour’s Bins.
    So yeah.. You do get the insane situation where donating your time to something Not On The List may be illegal and you’re technically a Lawbreaker and Criminal. ( savour the fuzzy feeling..)

    Didn’t stop me from donating my time last week/weekend as guinea pig-wrangler** at a large outdoor event, and I think I can assume it’ll never stop you donating your time/effort to anything that you like.

    ** translated event/porto slang for Chief Sparky/Troubleshooter.
    (kiloWatt = kVA = Cavia (dutch phonetic) = Guinea pig)
    Last event was 320 guinea pigs from 4 hamster cages. Fun Times… 🙂

  21. Grikath

    Thanks – a whole lot clearer… It was the response to jgh that confused me, because you agree that “you can donate any amount of time/labour you want” (although why the authorities might potentially ever want to meddle with something you can do freely still confuses me, but maybe that’s simply translation?).

    I understand your subsequent comments – we are talking about contractual obligations as they apply to employment law and similar. And hence that’s what you meant by a “professional” relationship (I misunderstood you).

    None of that would stop me (perfectly legally) being able to volunteer to help a business (or individuals) if I chose to. I suspect potential liability issues and similar might be a far more genuine concern for either party than any employment regulations. Hence:

    “You do get the insane situation where donating your time to something Not On The List may be illegal and you’re technically a Lawbreaker and Criminal.”

    Not in the UK, as far as I am aware? Unless someone can point me to it, and lead me to acknowledge the reality of “specific exceptions and a bit of elbow room for Putting Out The Neighour’s Bins”.

    Or maybe we’re at cross purposes and I’m still in *sigh* territory.. 🙂

  22. heh… no.. 😉

    As for the rest.. This stuff is notorious for needing lawyers to figure out what exactly is allowed locally. I’m but an egg knowing enough of the basics to cover my own arse.

  23. @John Galt – “The problem is that by not paying an adequate wage you are essentially excluding the poor from such opportunities”

    That is the rationale for banning unpaid internships, but it does not (or should not) apply in this case. If someone spends a year at university attending lectures, doing coursework, etc that is obviously work but unpaid. In theory, that is kept open to all by student loans which ensure that those who cannot afford to pay for it can defer the expense until they get to use the skills developed during the course. Since experience in the real world is valuable, a degree might include work experience, and this should be fine as long as you can use your student loan to finance this time just as if you had been attending a course.

    Of course, in the real world it may be that poor people are intimidated by ending their course with a lot of debt, making the opportunity of doing it rather unequal. But unless that differs depending on whether or not there is work experience as part of the course, equality of opportunity is not affected.

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