Today’s Herald reports that Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond has offered what seems to me like a pretty substantial job in his constituency office as an unpaid internship.
The First Minister sought a student to work for free on constituency casework at his Inverurie office near Aberdeen.
But the voluntary post, advertised through Aberdeen University careers service, was condemned by political opponents and campaigners.
In an embarrassing move for Mr Salmond, the pressure group Intern Aware reported the advert to the taxman, requesting an inquiry into whether the role should pay the minimum wage.
The internship was advertised earlier this month and described as a “volunteering opportunity”. However, the advert, featuring the SNP logo, detailed a list of high-level duties, including meeting constituents, dealing with local press, assisting staff with casework and administrative tasks.
The successful volunteer, who would receive travelling expenses, would require “excellent organisational skills”, computer skills and an ability to write well, the ad stated.
The office has offered several internships in previous years, the advert said.
I spent 4 years doing constituency casework. It’s the best job in the world because you can really transform people’s lives and help sort their problems out. It’s also pretty stressful, requiring patience, skill, tenacity and endless empathy.
It’s a substantial job and whoever does it needs to be paid, at the very least the minimum wage for someone who’s effectively learning the ropes and gaining work experience.
I’d expect the First Minster of Scotland to be setting a better example.
I’m glad that Liberal Youth have been campaigning hard against unpaid internships as you can see here. They say:
The job market can be a difficult place for young people as experience is now one of the most important factors employers use to determine if people are suitable for a position. It’s a trap. You can’t get a job without experience, an you can’t get experience without first having a job. Which is why many young people are forced to rely on unpaid internships to get their foot through the door. But few people can afford unpaid internships, which is why Liberal Youth are Campaigning to open up the job market to young people…
David Green, the President of Liberal Youth Scotland was unimpressed:
As a student at the University of Aberdeen I was shocked to see that the Office of Alex Salmond MSP is offering an unpaid internship on the run up the independence referendum.
Mr Salmond talks a good game on youth employment but it seems he is not above using unpaid student labour to fill what should be a paid position. Indeed, it seems he is quite happy to perpetuate the cycle of privilege of unpaid internships that is proven to exclude students from a poorer economic background and limit social mobility.
The law here is clear. The First Minister is offering a role with set hours, clear responsibilities and a full job description. It is an internship, plain and simple, not a voluntary role and whichever person is offered this job should be paid for their time.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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17 Comments
Caron
Just a few months ago when a Lib Dem MP advertised an unpaid internship (whose duties potentially included casework), you “spent a bit of time talking to his office today and getting [your] head round how their scheme operates” and generally bent over backwards to emphasise the positive aspects of the internship.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/swinson-argues-against-unpaid-internships-leech-advertises-for-unpaid-internships-37140.html
Your conclusion was that “while Leech’s interns are fine legally and the scheme is of good quality, there is little question that it goes against what the party has decided to do”. But what you didn’t say was “It’s a substantial job and whoever does it needs to be paid, at the very least the minimum wage …”
Chris, the two cases are very different. John Leech’s scheme is very different and involves participants being put through a programme of training , learning and gaining experience of different disciplines within the office. The job in Salmond’s office looks as if it fulfils the criteria for being a job, with its set hours and duties. We’ll see what happens when we see the result of the investigation.
Caron
“The job in Salmond’s office looks as if it fulfils the criteria for being a job, with its set hours and duties.”
Where do you get that from? The only reference to hours I can see in the article is a statement by an SNP spokesman that there has been no discussion of hours.
Well it certainly seems that there are set duties and they are looking for someone to do a job rather than gain work experience. Like I concluded in my article on John Leech’s office, it’s much better for these young people to be paid, and paid at least the national minimum wage.
Oh, and in Leech’s office, if they do end up covering anyone’s job, they do get paid for that.
Caron
I asked where you got “set hours and duties” from.
As a non-Tory East Anglian Englishman (who has traveled widely in Scotland), I do not have a vote re. Scottish Independence. I am pretty neutral on the Scottish Independence question. I do, however, have opinions. And one is that Mr A. Salmond is a seriously “dodgy” politician; another opinion is that Mr G. Osborne is a Tory politician who is also a seriously “dodgy” politician who has no love for the “ordinary folk” of these islands. Mr Osborne, however, has the rUK voters on board in so far as the rUK voters will not (in my opinion) ever agree to a Sterling union with an independent Scotland. The monetary (cash) risks of a possible big rUK bank bale-out of Scottish banks are there for all to see. And they are very real, especially if you are a tax-payer from south of the border. If I were Scottish I would pay heed to Mr Gordon Brown. I am definitely not a fan of Mr Brown’s alleged personal disposition, however I believe that he has a formidable intellect and that during the financial crash of 2008 he (fortunately) had the intellectual capacity to understand the complexities and severity of the situation. Very few British politicians did understand the dire and complex banking crisis, certainly no Tory or SNP MPs. I believe that were it not for the action taken by Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and a few worthy “others”, the British banking system was hours away from certain collapse. Result; — No ATM cash; no pensions being paid; no benefits being paid; salaries not being paid and so on ………. It was for very good reasons that Mr Brown “bailed out” the banks. So, when it comes to Scottish Independence, I believe the man should be listened to. End of.
Do we know if InternAware or anyone else reported the John Leech job to the Inland Revenue? Following Chris’s link above, the John Leech’s advert is at http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=42744 . To my untrained eye looks like a lot of unpaid work (sorry, “training”), and applicants need to demonstrate certain skills. But there are a lot of clever words in that advert.
It’s quite clear in the Herald article.
@David and Chris
I’m afraid you are missing the point. If Alex Salmond is doing something it is clearly evil. But if a Lib Dem is doing it, then obviously there is a good excuse. 😉
@Caron
You omitted a couple of details. One was the SNP’s response: “We’ve simply responded to a request from Aberdeen University to provide a short-term flexible internship to one of their full-time students – to assist them with their course.” Another is that the advert was on a restricted part of the university’s website (students need to login), suggesting that the SNP’s line is true. Also, the university of Aberdeen website provides a couple of case-studies for students who have undertaken internships with the SNP (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/careers/documents/Completed_case_study_form_-_Gosia.pdf, https://www.abdn.ac.uk/careers/documents/Case_Study_Politics_and_IR.pdf).
The advert for John Leech’s internship makes it sound no different to Alex Salmond’s. For that one Caron was prepared to go beyond the public advert and talk to the MP’s office but this time there appears to be no need to do anything but repeat (parts of) the Herald’s article. Leech’s advert and other Lib Dem ones (e.g. http://www.w4mpjobs.org/SearchJobs.aspx?search=alljobsplusexpired – search for ‘intern’) look the same as that reported for the SNP. Except the Lib Dems ones seem to be aimed at graduates rather than students.
I think that unpaid internships are unfair and favour the privileged. I agree with the Lib Dem policy on this. But the party’s practice has not lived up to the principle. The criticisms here of Salmond and the SNP might actually be unfair, and certainly seem hypocritical.
“It’s quite clear in the Herald article.”
Caron, as I have already said, the only reference to hours I can see in the article says that nothing has been discussed about hours. So I’ll ask a third time. Please can you quote the words in the article which suggest to you that there were “set hours”?
As Peter says, there seems to be very little difference between the work proposed in these two internships, even if the word “duties” is used in that newspaper report. (But is it used in the advertisement? Have you even seen the advertisement?)
I agree with you when you say “It’s a substantial job and whoever does it needs to be paid, at the very least the minimum wage …” But I think that if that applies to one of these internships it applies to both, and you shouldn’t attempt to defend John Leech’s just because he is a Lib Dem (or attack Salmond just because he is a political opponent!).
It reminds me of the old days in consumer legislation , please sign here so that are signing away all of your consumer rights… Well those days are gone and no amount of weasle word ‘disclaimers’ about being able to come and go as you please (can we really believe that would be acceptable?) is going to get around the fact that here we have financially stretched employers asking for people to work for nothing. Trying to make out that one situation is acceptable and another isn’t is pretty embaressing.
Peter, if you read my article on Leech’s internship, you’ll see I came to the conclusion that it’s better for people to be paid. I do think that there are differences between the two schemes and that Salmond’s sounds more like a job than Leech’s, but I think the days of not paying young people, who are already disadvantaged by having a lower National Minimum Wage, are over.
“Peter, if you read my article on Leech’s internship, you’ll see I came to the conclusion that it’s better for people to be paid.”
But when discussing Leech’s internship, you qualified that with “in a perfect world”!
@Caron “Salmond’s sounds more like a job than Leech’s”
Based on what though? In the case of Salmond you are looking at a newspaper article, in the case of Leech we had a public job advert that made no reference to the “structured training” that you uncovered by speaking to his office. If Salmond is offering a placement to an undergraduate student then it is far less like a job than the position in Leech’s office. And the undergraduate student at Aberdeen university who produced a case study on an internship in Salmond’s office commented on how useful the experience was to them.
Before Christmas, Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP, was advertising for two unsalaried interns for the busy run-up to the European elections (http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=43252). The positions, “Volunteer Interns … No salary though there is monthly stipend to cover expenses”, are in London and Brussels (so not inexpensive places to live) and “would suit a recent graduate”. Would you like to condemn this Lib Dem MEP for “perpetuating the cycle of privileges”?
And what about St. Alban’s Liberal Democrats (http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=42351) who wanted a volunteer intern (after “successfully incubating another intern”) to work with the campaign organiser “in a strategic seat … heavily involved in both local and national campaigning.”
Are there mitigating circumstances for all of the Lib Dem interns but none conceivable for Alex Salmond?
It seems appropriate to quote from Paul in Twickenham’s excellent post in a parallel thread (https://www.libdemvoice.org/on-demonisation-38307.html#comment-282169):
“On irregular verbs: …
We offer outstanding workplace learning opportunities for university students
You take advantage of desperate students who need to beef up their CVs for potential employers
They exploit our young people by making them work for nothing”