The Politics of Non-Payment
Image: internaware.org
On any regular day the notion of unpaid internships should make any would-be graduate - suffering with even the mildest case of pessimism - break down and weep. Not only is their life no longer their own (it now belongs to their department, their course, their tutors' marking decisions, the library), but the world will soon be unceremoniously flung onto their front porch like a wrecking ball, and the graduate in question will have no idea what to do with it. They say there are only two things in life that are certain, paying taxes and death. Now, in a job market that looks uncannily like the Nevada desert (dustballs and all), who knows if today's graduate will ever earn enough to cross the first tax threshold. Is death really our only certainty?!
Forgive the severe case of pessimism (and slight morbidity) but WWP, for the first time, really did break down and weep today. For the System (namely Her Majesty's Revenues and Customs) that had always be so kind, screwed me over royally over in both the long and the short term. In the short term, they refused to refund me the minimum wage for the ten months work I did for a company that (illegally) never paid me a penny. Despite the fact that this and this is going on right in front of our noses every time we switch on the 10 o'clock news (and/or check the BBC website when we've read everything on our Facebook feed), the Department of Work and Pensions is unrelentingly refusing claims such as mine on the basis of an 'employment contract.' You apply for an internship with a company, you create content for that company, most importantly you create revenue for that company...and your payment? 'Experience' or 'training.' John Stewart Mill it ain't.
Our generation crave independence more than we're given credit for. Yet we are thrown like overgrown babies with BScs into bassinets and dumped at the door of businesses, a want ad for an unpaid internship tucked in our blankets. We're expected to wait another five years in employment purgatory before we are finally allowed to fly the nest a second time. Apologies for the hyperbole; I should probably be writing semi-romantic prose highlighting the implications unpaid internships have on social mobility. (I have, incidentally, already done that here). But I want to dare to let a little emotion leak into this poor, malnourished blog. The System has screwed me in the long run by expecting me to work for free. I feel unappreciated, I feel hopeless. The desperate pleas of my cover letters make me feel embarrassed. But most of all, I feel ashamed for wanting to create a career in something I've loved doing for as long as I can remember. The political consequences of unpaid internships are broader and deeper than I could ever explain here. But the emotional consequences are greater than I've ever wanted to explore.
