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Permanent, Full-Time Managerial Position. Lunch and Tube Travel as Salary.

protohedgehogPhD

There was quite a stir earlier this month when UCL advertised an unpaid internship, the full series of responses of can be found here. Now it’s happened again with BG Mag, but for an editorial/managerial position. The pay? Lunch and travel for Zones 1-3, for a permanent full-time position. Full details are here, and screenshotted below in case they remove it (as has happened before). Thanks to Kelly Oakes for pointing this out.

Job description. Incredibly harmful.

This is another example of a job only being open to those who can afford to live in London without salary, as in those with exceptionally wealthy parents. It’s financially crippling to anyone who can’t, and immoral on many levels. And this is not just for a volunteer or work experience position: it’s a full-time and permanent managerial/editorial position. I imagine the average salary for that is slightly more than the £10/day or whatever this pathetic excuse for a wage amounts to.

I’ve written the magazine a simple letter asking them to either remove the position, or offer a salary that adequately reflects the position. It may have been slightly more strongly worded than this though.

It turns out that interns also are given the same ‘salary’. How incredibly sad to see this kind of employment still being advertised. I’ll update this, should I get a response. As Ben Goldacre points out in his similar post, this is a systemic issue, and needs resolving through open discussion.

Source: Corn on the Job.

UPDATE 1: Response from GB Mag:

Dear Jon,

The details we sent over to Gorkana included a salary. They have posted the wrong details, which has obviously reflected badly on us. I wouldn’t dream of getting an intern to fill this position.

I have asked Gorkana to remove the advert immediately but they are being very slow about actioning my request.

I am sorry for the upset this has caused you.

Regards

Wahida

To which I responded:

Hi Wahilda, 

Thank you for responding. That’s good to hear about the intention to have a salaried position. I can’t help but notice that you’re advertising unpaid internships too though. The link provided in the previous email gives evidence about how detrimental this is, and I’m sure you’re aware of the consistent public outrage over such positions. I find it, therefore, a little concerning that along with these positions, you appear to equate ‘unpaid’ with ‘intern’ in your response below, and these adverts.

I am an intern, and I work in London. I get paid the London Living Wage, which is a fair salary. I would not be able to do my job without this. 
 
I politely, but strongly, request that you reconsider offering unpaid internships, as they are damaging to not only yourself, both in terms of the quality of candidate you employ and the image you portray to the public, and also to those who you hire.
 
Thank you for responding to the issue of the Editorial position – I hope Gorkana rectify the situation.
 
Best,
 
Jon
UPDATE 2:

Hi Jon,

All our interns are extremely well trained whilst they are with us, and have a lot to put on their CV. Plus we have offered jobs to two we took on three months ago.

Thanks

Wahida

Time to be diplomatic.

Hi Wahida,

Why I don’t doubt that you train your staff extremely well, I must ask, could you personally afford to live in London for 3 months with no salary? Think about how this restricts your potential candidate list, as well as the moral implications of what you offer. Consider it further in the context of a graduate emerging from university with a maxed out overdraft and ~£30k worth of debt.
 
Just because you offered two of them jobs, this does not iron out the fact that you hired staff and didn’t pay them. The end does not justify the means, and in this case the means is, and always will be immoral. This isn’t a personal assault on your company, it’s a systemic problem, in that employers are exploiting a loophole which enables them to get skilled labour for no cost. It is somewhat comforting to hear that you train staff well, and offer employment to some after, but if this is the case, why not just hire them as full time anyway? As an employer, you really must consider this scenario from the perspectives of those who you are employing.
 
Best,
 
Jon
UPDATE 3:
No response to the above yet, but, I did get this from Gorkana:

Dear Jon,

Gorkana would like to apologise for any confusion caused to you as a candidate and to GB Mag for the error in their advert for the vacancy for an Online Editor. It was human error on the part of Gorkana. GB Mag had stated in writing that the role would be paid and should in no way be blamed for the mistake.

Again, sincere apologies for any confusion. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Many thanks,

Also, it turns out they have taken down the job advert for the unpaid internships! http://www.gorkanajobs.co.uk/job/14248/gb-mag-pr-intern/

Victoire!

0 thoughts on “Permanent, Full-Time Managerial Position. Lunch and Tube Travel as Salary.”

  1. Aaaahh! I wouldn’t be suprised to find that they will actually not hire anyone who doesn’t have exact relevant previous experience – even for this amount of ‘pay’. Something I am coming across regularly as a job hunter is the fact that even for entry level positions that say you don’t require previous experience in the role but, surprise surprise, they won’t interview you if you don’t have the so-called ‘non-essential’ experience! How are you meant to get ahead in the job market if you can’t afford to live in London on an internship ‘wage’ or full time volunteering to train yourself for entry level positions? Grr.

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  2. Surely this is why we have minimum wage legislation? Internships are a grey area but it can’t be legal to hire full time, permanent staff on this basis, can it?

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  3. It’s the utterly disgusting behaviour of multi-generation silver-spooners and first-generation stainless-steel-spooners studiously pulling the ladder up behind themselves after the first generation of people have benefited from state-funded university-level education.
    The 1970s generation of studens had, in large part, parents with tin-plate spoons in their mouths ; they have done relatively well (thanks in large part to the investment in their education by the state), and now have stainless-steel teaspoons for theiir offspring. But now they have something to protect against the “great unwashed”, they are systematically cooperating with “old money” to stop more people from challenging them for their positions of power.
    Scum-bags, the rancid lot of them.
    Quite likely both you and I are member of that relatively priviledged generation – I was the first person in my family (to any degree of relationship that we can trace) ever to go to university, and I was also in the last few years to recieve a student grant rather than a loan. Thanks to the support of my parents and the state in approximately equal measure, I’m well up on the ladder from which one of my siblings has firmly fallen, while the other sibling is having some struggle to keep a hold onto.
    But our political (and business, and legal ; all interchangeable) Lords and Masters have plainly decided that such social mobility (I don’t consider it a climb, considering how many thorough-going bastards there are in the “upper classes” of British society) is insupportable now that they have benefited, and this is part of their technique of getting the boot firmly back onto the face of the masses. (Yes, that is a ‘1984’ reference.)
    (Rant ; fume, mutter. I’ll get my bottle of Strong Cidre and go and sit on the town hall steps now, shouting at the seagulls.)

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    1. Nice rant.

      Although I’m not of the generation you think – £40k of student debts says otherwise, along with a maxed out overdraft. Fortunately, my boss pays me an adequate wage for doing what I do, and I’m highly thankful to him, as an intern.

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  5. Gorkana would like to apologise to GB Mag for the error in their advert for the vacancy for an Online Editor. It was human error on the part of Gorkana. GB Mag had stated in writing that the role would be paid and should in no way be blamed for the mistake.

    Again, sincere apologies for any confusion caused and harm to GB Mag.

    Gorkana Jobs

    Reply

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