Dear Ed,
A Labour MP has hit the news for replacing a paid member of staff with an unpaid intern. Lyn Brown has acted wrongly. Unpaid internships exploit young people desperate to get work at a time of high graduate unemployment. And they cut out the vast majority who can’t afford to work for free.
You know this to be true. You speak of a “British promise” under threat because “the next generation will find it harder to get on than the last”. You highlight the difficulty young people have in finding jobs and criticise the way “the best off… buy their way to hand the best chances to get on to their children.”
We were delighted that you signed our pledge to campaign for the “Minimum Wage Act to be fully enforced so that employers must pay their interns.”
But it is difficult to talk about social mobility with a straight face while the only young people who can afford to work in Labour MPs’ offices are those who can afford to work for free.
You promised to end unpaid internships across Britain. Today, we ask you to keep your pledge in a very small way: end unpaid internships in the Labour Party and put the rhetoric of “the British promise” into action.
