The Warrington Guardian reports:
AN e-mail has been sent to every councillor in the town claiming that one of them is trying to recruit unpaid workers – ignoring national minimum wage guidelines.
Clr Jo Crotty is the target of the e-mail claiming that the Warrington South Lib Dem MP hopeful has been advertising for an intern to work for her without pay.
But the Bewsey and Whitecross member says that the mystery e-mailer’s allegations are incorrect as not only does she not have any interns working for her but it is also within legal guidelines to take on interns.
She said: “The party has guidelines on how we advertise for interns. We have interns and we have always paid them expenses and worked within the law.”
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By a strange coincidence, the BBC news site has a piece about whether interns are being exploited and whether they are in fact exempt from minimum wage legislation:
Genuine volunteers are exempt from minimum wage regulations, but a recent House of Commons Commission report on the Employment of Members’ staff by the House says: “As soon as they [interns] are expected to be at work at specific times or to complete specific work, they are no longer volunteers but employees and some employment legislation will apply, such as the minimum wage.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8348394.stm
There is an email doing the rounds of Councillors in Wolverhampton attacking a Conservative PPC along the same lines.
I think there was a Tory PPC on ConHome, saying how he’d used about a dozen unpaid interns during the summer. He paid their expenses and for a party at the end of their internship, I can’t really see anything wrong with it myself.