End ‘free labour’ call

Unite has called for an end to a loophole that enables employers, mostly in hospitality, to exploit mainly young people on unpaid trial shifts.

Media outlets highlighted the issue at the weekend, with the BBC featuring one young person who had been asked to take on a trial shift to see if they were suitable for the job, but then were not called back afterwards and not paid for the work they had done.

The BBC spoke to 15-year-old Mia, who over the summer had been looking for a part-time job. A local café responded to her CV offering her a trial shift. She told of how she worked a 7-hour shift on a busy Saturday but was not paid afterwards.

When her father Shaun posted her experience on social media, dozens of parents responded saying their children had also been made to work unpaid trial shifts but were subsequently not offered jobs.

Unite, the UK’s largest union in hospitality, has long campaigned against the practice, which it says may be used as a ruse to cover staff absences.

Unite regional officer Dave Turnbull explained how a loophole in the law allows employers to take advantage of prospective employment candidates.

“Guidelines that [the government] have put out give a bit of a loophole to the employer to say this is a genuine trial and we need to assess whether the person is right for the job,” he told the BBC. “But that just creates a situation where the employer can take advantage.”

Government guidelines on the matter say that employers may ask job applicants to take on unpaid work as long as it is genuinely part of a recruitment process and as long as unpaid trail shifts are not ‘excessive’ – though ‘excessive’ is not clearly defined.

Widespread

Unite has previously highlighted extreme cases of abuse of unpaid trial shifts.

At Mark Greenway, a restaurant in Edinburgh, past and present staff told Unite that the eatery would fill dozens of shifts of unpaid trial work each week with prospective hires to cover busy peak periods. At two stores of the Mooboo Bubble Tea chain in Glasgow, Unite discovered that applicants have been asked to undertake 40 hours of unpaid work before even being considered for the job.

And reportedly at Aldi, as many as 150 people per store may be brought in to undertake unpaid trial work at stores across the country.

Neil Moore, a Unite hospitality organiser in Northern Ireland, on Monday (June 24) highlighted local examples, indicating that the practice is widespread.

He told of a local group of bars that expects new applicants to work two or three shifts unpaid before even being considered for the job, while another local coffee business that offered a trial shift to an experienced barista who completed it, was praised for his performance and then given more shifts the following weekend.

“When he asked about payment arrangements he was told not to bring up money and since was essentially ghosted by the employer in subsequent texts and emails asking if he had got the position,” Moore explained.

“A restaurant in Belfast city centre made one of our members work an unpaid trial shift but then the owner claimed that he was too busy to adequately observe how they had performed so he asked our member to work another four hours for him the following day,” he added.

Unite believes legislation is needed urgently as the practice becomes more pervasive. A Middlesex University study from last year estimated that unpaid trial shifts benefits businesses to the tune of ÂŁ3bn each year.

The union has reported a six-fold increase in complaints over unpaid trial shifts over the last three years and receives dozens of reports each and every day across the UK and Ireland.

Fresh hopes

MPs sought to make the unpaid trail shifts illegal last year, when a private members bill was put forward in March 2018. In the end, it was talked out by the government and so failed to have a chance at becoming law.

But fresh hopes were raised after a Jersey Employment Tribunal this year ruled in favour of a woman who had applied for a job as a kitchen porter. The Tribunal ordered the restaurant, Ruby’s Kitchen, to pay the woman £30 after she was made to work an unpaid trial shift but failed to get the job. The restaurant appealed but lost.

Unite believes this case could pave the way for more like it – and could add pressure to the government to legislate against unpaid trial shifts. The case prompted Steward McDonald MP, who introduced the private members bill last year, to write to business minister Kelly Tolhurst, calling on the government to act.

“Given the outcome of the case, and the lawyer’s opinion of rulings in similar cases in the future, I would be grateful if you would now, unequivocally, make it clear that all unpaid work trials are illegal and the government will make sure that all work trials will be paid for – there is no excuse now,” he wrote.

Unite hospitality organiser Bryan Simpson reiterated the call for the government to take action after cross-party MPs formed an all-parliamentary group on the issue earlier this month.

“These workers need legal protection from unscrupulous employers who continue to use unpaid trial shifts as a shameless way to obtain free labour,” he said. “The creation of an all-party group on unpaid trial shifts is an important step in that direction.”