working an unpaid trial for 4 days

+1

There's a very well-known, busy Dublin pub which advertises jobs around the colleges in the area. I know of a few students who were asked to work from 8pm to 3am cleaning, clearing tables, washing glasses etc. and were on unpaid trials for 3 or 4 days, only to be told they weren't good enough, which I don't believe as they worked very hard with no breaks.

The next victims were lining up for the trials and the pub gets constant free labour as the students are desperate for a job.

I remember reading about this shoddy practice, some years ago, possibly here on AAM. I seem to remember a young guy being told to buy certain clothes, e.g. black trousers/ white shirt, as a uniform, and then let go, without pay, after working long hours.
It was also brought up, at that time, on some radio programme. It's a shame that some businesses are still getting away with this.

I don't understand how it's legal for employers to do this. If people are working on a trail basis that's fair enough but they should be paid the minimum wage for their age (at a minimum) for doing so.
I've never heard of it in my sector but when we hire people the cost of training them is higher than their wages anyway.

Purple said:

I don't understand how it's legal for employers to do this. If people are working on a trail basis that's fair enough but they should be paid the minimum wage for their age (at a minimum) for doing so.
I've never heard of it in my sector but when we hire people the cost of training them is higher than their wages anyway.

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I agree but how we do reconcile that with something like job bridge where people I know have worked over 40 hours a week for €230 social welfare payment. That's not even the minimum wage for trainees but when the Government do it, we call it training. When employers do it, we call it exploitation. I know there is a difference between nothing and the social welfare payment but why not pay everyone the minimum wage?

Sunny said:

I agree but how we do reconcile that with something like job bridge where people I know have worked over 40 hours a week for €230 social welfare payment. That's not even the minimum wage for trainees but when the Government do it, we call it training. When employers do it, we call it exploitation. I know there is a difference between nothing and the social welfare payment but why not pay everyone the minimum wage?

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Job Bridge is good in theory but there should be serious penalties for employers who abuse it. If it's just used for cheap labour then it's bad. If it's used as intended then it's good. To be fair to those involved and those who run it the percentage of people who end up being employed from it are high and the feedback from most people who participate seems to be positive. The horror stories not withstanding.