NEW SLAVE LABOUR

Heard it.

More non-paid shenanigans. Last night’s Channel 4 News reported on Danny Dewsbury, the media graduate at the centre of the row between him and his ‘employers’, The Labour Party.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJlhClw4Qng

education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,1879042,00.html

The job ad Danny replied to reads as follows –

Director/Cameraman with own mini-DV camera required to film interviews for Labour party conference 2006. No fee, but expenses paid and great experience going around the country filming cabinet ministers."

This is worryingly normal these days. Not only do you work for free, but you have to supply your own gear. Labour’s justification? Well, Channel 4 hires plenty of volunteers too. So that’s okay then. These days you can exploit anybody because everyone else is at it. And here’s me thinking - probably more to the point - that Labour’s strapped for cash, now the peers-for-cash scam is sitting in the in-tray at Scotland Yard.

But is whistle-blowing a good career move for young Danny? It’s mighty brave of him, but I don’t know too many companies in the market for a grass. Then again, he might be fighting off job offers galore. I hope so, but not as a cameraman, judging by his dodgy hand-held of Hazel Blears looking very much at home at the checkout of her local supermarket.

Shame on Labour. Not a lot of point patting yourself on the back for the minimum wage if you can't pay it. And as for Channel 4, as I reported in an earlier blog about the Boom Room, it’s the pot calling the kettle black. Same goes for all these bogus unpaid gigs masking as training schemes. Like I say - if you can already do the job, then they ought to pay up. If you can’t, do you really think you’ll get hired?

The nuance of what’s an employee as opposed to a volunteer isn’t what matters. What matters is if you let them get away with it, they’ll keep getting away with it. What’s worse is the rise in so–called training endorsed by the government and exploited by greedy no-hopers like PAL, WarpX or PropellerTV, say, who tap into Skillset, Film Council, Arts Council and all the other free public dosh out there.

Talk about collective delusion. Are we meant to fall for it when the government tells us that the creative industries are set to become the UK’s biggest employer? Isn’t it a lie to say that with enough training, one day we can look forward to paid work? Because for how long can anybody’s overdraft wear working for free before they jack it all in and get a job at Gap? You only have to look at the chancers posting on Shooting People for slave labour on their movies. No wonder the screen biz is riddled with the offspring of rich tax dodgers – the buggers need something to do in between shopping and snowboarding.

New Slave Labour. Thanks a bunch, Tony.