#devilpaysnada

Today The Devil pays Nada delivered a workshop as part of ArtSmart 2013 on unpaid internships and unfair practice in the arts. It was great to talk to students once again about the topic and cover important information about working rights!

Over the year we've made some great progress on the issue, getting support from influential people within the university, including Heads of Colleges who are prominent figures within the industry, as well as committment from SEE to ban the advertisement of unpaid internships and unfair work opportunities. It's great the the university is taking steps to recognise their role in influencing the industry and backing students.

We had over 2000 of you sign up to the campaign, telling us that this is a key problem for you as a UAL student, which led us to prioritise this as a key area for the SU to work on.

Unpaid internships are unfair and exploitative and here are some key things to remember about them:

 - The law states that interns in the UK are, in most cases, entitled to the National Minimum Wage and fall under the category of a 'worker'

- If you are contributing set tasks to a company which they benefit from in any way, or are given set hours to work in, you are essentially a 'worker' and entitled to a wage!

- Calling an opportunity 'volunteering' etc does not overrule the above, you would still be classed as a worker in the eyes of the law!

- Interns have been claiming back wages that they are owed even after completing an internship, where the employer has been fined by HMRC after being found to have breached Minimum Wage laws.

- Check out Carrot Workers, InternAware and the SUARTS campaign page for more info about the issue and get in touch with us about any questions!

We hope to lead more talks about the issue for UAL students over the coming year, so look out for the campaign. It's been an exciting year and hopefully we will see more fair opportunities for students in the near future!

Fairooz

About a year ago I started planning for the Devil pays Nada campaign against unpaid internships. I had no idea what I was going to do or how I was going to do it, and it seemed an impossible feat. With 130,000 unpaid interns in the UK, and almost all employers in the creative sector buying into this institutional exploitation for their own gain, it seemed like Goliath that couldn't be touched. Interns were frightened to speak up and demand pay and fair treatment, and why wouldn't they be, when it’s been drilled into us all that we must expect to work for free to get a look in.

When employers, friends, careers services, even our own tutors have hammered into us the message that, if you want to work in this elitist industry, you will be obediently making teas and coffees for free at the mercy of employers. Being The One to stand up and say no seemed like one terrifying prospect. Seemed. I use the past tense because we’ve come a long way since then.

Intern Campaigning Groups Target Fashion Week 2013

Today the Guardian reported this story about interns who claimed back the minimum wage for the work they had done for companies as unpaid interns.

The response from IPC publishing (NOW magazine) was that they hadn't realised that she was doing tasks that warrant a wage. Convenient.

Quoted in the article, they said:

'it appears that she progressed to carrying out tasks for which she was entitled to be paid.

"Once this was brought to our attention, the payment was made through IPC's payroll."

How difficult it must be for them at NOW, if i had someone packing and unpacking boxes and maintaining my stockroom I too would find it impossible to pinpoint that they are in fact, doing work for me.

Disgusting.

Well done to the CSM graduate who stood up and fought back, and asked for the wages and recognition that her talents deserve. Clearly more companies need help from interns on recognising the line between a learning experience and free labour.

If you've done an unpaid internship and would like to speak to us please email [email protected]

Have you completed a placement as part of your course at UAL? This can be anything from a sandwich year to a term to a few weeks. If it was a part of your curriculum, we want to know about your experiences.

Click HERE to tell us more about your placement, with the following points in mind:

What was the placement like?

What kind of duties did you carry out?

Was there any financial implication on you (did you have to take time out of a part time job/borrow money etc to fund this time? did they pay expenses?)

How did your tutor support you throughout the placement? (did they email/phone you to check how it was going? how often?)

How did your tutor follow up afterwards about what you learnt/did? Did you produce a report/do a presentation? were you graded on this? follow up tutorials?

Submit your story either anonymously or logged in, either way all posts will be private and only considered so that we can see what your experiences have been!

=)