A London designer describes how the HMRC crackdown on unpaid internships could affect small fashion businesses…
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs has warned London Fashion Week designers that failure to pay interns the national minimum wage could lead to prosecution.
In a letter sent to 102 fashion brands, HMRC said that any business failing to pay employees over the age of 21 the minimum £6.08 hourly wage could find itself bearing the brunt of enforcement measures in the New Year.
‘These letters give fashion houses plenty of warning that they are under scrutiny,’ Michelle Wyer, HMRC’s assistant director for national minimum wage, said. ‘If they are not playing by the rules, now is the time to put things right. Non-payment of the national minimum wage is not an option.’
‘Our message is clear: don’t wait for us to come knocking on your door; put things right now and avoid a penalty and possible prosecution.’
Though the system of unpaid internships is roundly criticised and recognised as one that unfairly excludes non-affluent workers, interns are the engines that drive the fashion industry. The framework is so prevalent that most designers, public relations executives, editors and stylists in staff jobs today completed internships at the beginnings of their careers.
The looming crackdown (or as some have described it, the convenient distraction from the eurozone meltdown) spotlights the tenuous position of young brands. We sought comment from more than 10 designers, all of whom retain the services of interns. They or their representatives were uneasy about adding their voices to the fray.
Then we reached Cozette McCreery. One of three designers behind NEWGEN-winning knitwear brands SIBLING and SISTER by SIBLING, McCreery was refreshingly candid about the dilemma that unpaid work poses for her business. Her comments illuminate the difficult position of emerging designers everywhere, so we reproduce them in full here:
- ‘Everybody should be paid for their time, whether they’re stacking shelve at a supermarket or working for a big-name designer. Their time is important and their input into the workings and production of a collection is really vital. It’s a difficult one though, because the other thing is that any of us who have worked in the fashion industry have come through this route, so it seems very, very normal.
- ‘Most people who are starting out in the industry just don’t have the funds. It’s just done with love, and that’s it. When the main designers aren’t getting paid—if you can’t find money to pay yourself—it’s really difficult to find money to pay others.
- ‘Internships are still seen as getting your foot in the door. So even though you might not be getting a regular wage, it’s almost like you do the time, and then you make the most of your short time that’s spent there, and in the end, quite often, what happens is that the company really wants you to stay and takes measures to actually keep you. We normally have just a couple of interns, but we bring on more in the run-up to LFW. We have interns who we’ve had since they were doing foundation courses coming back to help on certain things—we can’t be that bad.
- ‘I don’t want it to be seen as an excuse for people to not get paid, but you learn a vast amount at internships that you just don’t learn at college. Just people making tea is a godsend when you’re in a really busy studio. You arrive, and you’re given specific jobs. You get to learn how studios work and what you can bring to that environment, which is invaluable. And we do help. If we can help interns with re-looking at their portfolios or helping them with CVs or giving them references, of course we do that.
- ‘Payment is normally worked out on a project basis. If there were a compulsory minimum wage, we would seriously have to restructure our company. We need the workforce. It would be great if the government could think of some incentive to actually say that there’s a way of helping to fund it.
- ‘None of us want to be in a position where we don’t want to pay people—we don’t all sit here on moneybags, going “Ha ha ha, we don’t have to pay you.” But that’s taken from a very small company’s point of view. I don’t know how it would feel if you were a major designer, but then again, they must have people queuing up to work with them. Their first step in filtering people out is the idea that if someone wants this enough, they will be willing to do this for free, which is really a pretty despicable attitude when taken at face value. But then again, it’s become a traditional thing in fashion so to us feels very appropriate.’
What do you think? Is the internship system in fashion inherently unfair, just the way things work, a boon for aspiring fashion workers, or all of the above. Share your view in the comments section below.
