You pay peanuts...you get...one of us?

[RoyalBlue]

If somebody wants the job they will apply. If they don't, they won't. What's the problem?

The problem is that it's immoral.

The problem is that if it is a full-time position it's unlawful!

How wonderful (actually dysfunctional) 'The Reading Way' is!

Still what do you expect when your club has been run by a Thatcher Disciple!

I suggest that all of you who are supporting the club over this get yourselves and education and learn a little about the laws of this land. Then, when you've run up over £30K in student debt, spend a year in an unpaid internship whilst you are exploited by a very rich organisation (and it's by no means just football that are guilty of this) who knows that you have to get experience before you can start earning and pay that debt off. The whole process is unjust, pure exploitation and absolutely stinks.

Thank goodness that if RFC are regarded as being guilty of this practice HMRC will be taking the wages that should have been paid off them and paying to those who were exploited in this manner.

[ZacNaloen]

I would have thought travel to games would be with other members of the support staff, expenses would be those of getting to the training ground.

Which would still be expensive though.

[Snowball]

Every one complaining about this clearly doesn't understand business in today's world. There'll will be a long list of applicants, because it is a fantastic career opportunity.

Sadly, we complain because we DO.

It's immoral.

It's frankly irrelevant that people are queuing up. They are stitched up.

Nobody asks that this multi-million pound business pays "apprentices" £100K p a
but a moral business would be a meaningful wage and reasonable expenses
DESPITE THE FACT it could get away with paying less.


Second, these unpaid, no-expensed workers keep another worker, a father, a mother out of work

CLASSIC Tory distortion of the marketplace

Everybody thinks the world owes them a living. Sometimes, you have to go out and suffer some hardships for a while, in order to look at the long term employment prospects.
I know some people who have spent nearly three years working as an unpaid intern, just to get a chance to work in the industry they want to be in for their entire career.
And if they work hard, they'll eventually make back what they missed out on for those years and some. This is quite common practice in the US.
Some people need to get over themselves.

Hardship? ZERO wages for a year and you also have to PAY to travel to games, stop away etc.

That isn't the equivalent of the low-paid apprentice, that's making these jobs only
available to the children of the rich - yet more class-biased rape of the workforce

[RoyalBlue]

The "no expenses" part is a disgrace. What sort of person could do a role like this?

You'd have to have rich parents because I can't see you getting a Loan to pay for a car, fuel and away living expenses from any lender.

I know a chap who is part of the prozone team at Bolton and he went straight into it from university.

This is just exploitation and I hope the negative press the club gets makes them change tact, though that seems doubtful.

Don't worry, now it's out HMRC will make them change their practice. Does this now mean they won't fill these positions? I bet it doesn't!

[Snowball]

I suggest that all of you who are supporting the club over this get yourselves and education and learn a little about the laws of this land. Then, when you've run up over £30K in student debt, spend a year in an unpaid internship whilst you are exploited by a very rich organisation (and it's by no means just football that are guilty of this) who knows that you have to get experience before you can start earning and pay that debt off. The whole process is unjust, pure exploitation and absolutely stinks.

Thank goodness that if RFC are regarded as being guilty of this practice HMRC will be taking the wages that should have been paid off them and paying to those who were exploited in this manner.

Well said.

In the 1970s we could get a degree FEES PAID and receive £2,400 a year grant (I did).

Now that same degree would cost £27,000, no help, and I'd have to spend to stay alive.

Now add on a year of Post grad so I'd be 60-70 grand in debt, and THEN a year (or according to one US poster THREE years) unpaid internship.

So, conservatively, that's £100,000 just to have the right to work.

And then, of course, by the same twisted morality, why not make those ex-interns, now earning, work for tiny wages
(well there are plenty prepared to do it for nothing mate)



and people wonder why we needed unions.

[Maguire]

It's Labour's fault for trying to get half of all school leavers into further education. Who the hell needs thousands of sports scientists churned out of the system every every year? Not sustainable to support every single student going through higher education and little wonder that tuition fees became an inevitability.

I say again - this position might not offer an immediate wage but it offers something which, in the long run, will boost earning potential.

[St. Brynjar]

It's Labour's fault

I didn't know you were every Conservative/Lib Dem politician in England.

[ZacNaloen]

Don't you think the role should at least be minimum wage though Maguire?

[Colin Cheeselog]

The problem is that if it is a full-time position it's unlawful!

No it's not as an internship.

get yourselves and education and learn a little about the laws of this land

Several ironic points to that. Shall i go through them with you?

[ZacNaloen]

What the difference between an internship and a full time job advertised as an intership?

[Esteban]

Every one complaining about this clearly doesn't understand business in today's world. There'll will be a long list of applicants, because it is a fantastic career opportunity.

Sadly, we complain because we DO.

It's immoral.

It's frankly irrelevant that people are queuing up. They are stitched up.

Nobody asks that this multi-million pound business pays "apprentices" £100K p a
but a moral business would be a meaningful wage and reasonable expenses
DESPITE THE FACT it could get away with paying less.


Second, these unpaid, no-expensed workers keep another worker, a father, a mother out of work

CLASSIC Tory distortion of the marketplace

Everybody thinks the world owes them a living. Sometimes, you have to go out and suffer some hardships for a while, in order to look at the long term employment prospects.
I know some people who have spent nearly three years working as an unpaid intern, just to get a chance to work in the industry they want to be in for their entire career.
And if they work hard, they'll eventually make back what they missed out on for those years and some. This is quite common practice in the US.
Some people need to get over themselves.

Hardship? ZERO wages for a year and you also have to PAY to travel to games, stop away etc.

That isn't the equivalent of the low-paid apprentice, that's making these jobs only
available to the children of the rich - yet more class-biased rape of the workforce

Firstly, don't presume to know anything about my personal political views.

Secondly, I didn't say I agreed with it, but it is a fact that some people will put up with that in order to get on in life. It happens everywhere. You make a choice to follow a career path and sometimes, it requires you to put up with things that the rest of us wouldn't even dream about doing. But that doesn't mean that certain people won't suffer it.

Strap's excellent post highlights it. His sons made a decision to get into sports science within football, which requires a level of knowledge and experience that can only be gained by doing the job. If the only jobs out there are unpaid, then that's just what they'll have to do. Fortunately for them, Strap made the decision to support them. They are privileged, because many other people just won't have the means to do take an unpaid internship. Fair play to Strap for supporting his kids and, I would imagine, sacrificing something in order to do so.

Is it right that people have to do that? No, probably not. But get off your high horse and face facts. Internships, unpaid and not expensed, are a necessity if you want to follow some career paths. It's a choice made by an individual and there is no exploitation in that.

I'll make it clear, I do not support the notion of unpaid internships, but I'm certainly not going complain that the club are doing it, because it is common place.

[Maguire]

Don't you think the role should at least be minimum wage though Maguire?

Depends what you mean by "should".

I don't know what the law says about this. If it dictates that a minimum wage should be paid then yes.

[ZacNaloen]

What I'm trying to get at, and what the various articles are hinting at, is that this is actually a job that should be advertised as a paid job and not an intership and they are breaking the law some how. But I don't know, as it seems to me an intern does all the things a trainee would do except unpaid and with no guarantee of a job at the end even if they exceed expectations. Seems it would be hard to prove this isn't anything more than an intership.

[MouldyRoyal]

The problem is that if it is a full-time position it's unlawful!

No it's not as an internship.

Calling it an internship does not automatically make it an internship. Many companies advertise roles that are legally and technically not internships as internships to avoid paying at least minimum wages. There have been several cases where former "interns" have successfully sued their employers as courts found that their roles did not aamount to internships and they should be paid minimum wage.

The distinctions between interns and workers are blurred and courts take a case by case approach to determining this sort of thing. I'd suggest, from looking at the job advert, that the role could very well be determined work as opposed to an internship.

[ZacNaloen]

But at the same time if the internship doesn't at least resemble what you would be doing if you had that role full time, what value is it?

[MouldyRoyal]

But at the same time if the internship doesn't at least resemble what you would be doing if you had that role full time, what value is it?

The value for the intern is that they receive experience and training. Observation and active training and participation are not going to make you a worker but will certainly provide valuable experience and insight into your chosen role.

But case law has shown that there is protection for employees who are performing unpaid work disguised as internships.

[RoyalBlue]

The problem is that if it is a full-time position it's unlawful!

No it's not as an internship.

get yourselves and education and learn a little about the laws of this land

Several ionic points to that. Shall i go through them with you?

I presume you meant 'ironic' and not 'ionic'?!

Had you bothered to watch the news, you would have seen a Government Minister confirming that the practice we are talking about is unlawful. You would also have heard her state how much money HMRC have so far recovered in back wages from the unscrupulous employers who have been taking on students to do what in effect is a normal job, claiming it is an internship and not paying them at least the national minimum wage.

As I said in my previous posting, were RFC not able to exploit an intern in this manner, I suspect that they would still need to take someone on to perform the tasks previously undertaken by interns. Even if that is not the case, to expect interns to even pay their own expenses is outright exploitation, particularly when undertaken by a PL football club.

Given the profession that I work in, I believe I am well placed to know quite a lot about employment law, as well as good and bad employment practices.

[Wycombe Royal]

I suggest that all of you who are supporting the club over this get yourselves and education and learn a little about the laws of this land. Then, when you've run up over £30K in student debt, spend a year in an unpaid internship whilst you are exploited by a very rich organisation (and it's by no means just football that are guilty of this) who knows that you have to get experience before you can start earning and pay that debt off. The whole process is unjust, pure exploitation and absolutely stinks.

Thank goodness that if RFC are regarded as being guilty of this practice HMRC will be taking the wages that should have been paid off them and paying to those who were exploited in this manner.

Well said.

In the 1970s we could get a degree FEES PAID and receive £2,400 a year grant (I did).

Now that same degree would cost £27,000, no help, and I'd have to spend to stay alive.

Now add on a year of Post grad so I'd be 60-70 grand in debt, and THEN a year (or according to one US poster THREE years) unpaid internship.

So, conservatively, that's £100,000 just to have the right to work.

And then, of course, by the same twisted morality, why not make those ex-interns, now earning, work for tiny wages
(well there are plenty prepared to do it for nothing mate)



and people wonder why we needed unions.

What a load of tosh.

[melonhead]

Shameful exploitation of someone desperate to get on in life.

Bastards.

I know this sort of thing happens in business all the time, but at the very least you would think they would pay expenses.

he gets a free home and away season ticket tbf.....

[royal67]

As well receiving no pay or any kind of compensation for travelling expenses, I wouldn't be surprised if Reading FC will also be charging the 'lucky' applicant to attend the home games......... Just to make the opportunity that little bit more appealing..... Not......