10th October 2008, 04:15 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Oxbeast
I was on a site a couple of years ago for a charity RAO. They had just taken on a young lad, and rather than start him on trainee wages, they told him to sign on and volunteer to dig. I think this entailed the director of the unit writing off to the DSS saying that he was a volunteer-trainee. This did go on for a couple of months (as far as I recall). This lad had loads of trouble with the DSS, who couldn't understand how he was volunteering to do a job that other people were being paid for. The unit took him on after he complained the he was going to lose his dole. he's still ana rchaeologist, as far as I know.
i didn't report them to the IFA at the time because I was still a bit green. I would now.
I am certainly aware of people doing 'work experience' at an organisation, an RAO, for some length of time before being taken on as staff. At what point does useful work experience become exploitation? Even if such as person isn't really doing anything particularly essential it still adds something of a competative advantage on commmercial projects and is potentially in breach of the IFA guidelines. Clearly, work experience happens in all types of professions, but not necessarily for several weeks or months on the trot and usually only doing non-important dogsbody style work that no-one else wants to do anyway - a bit like being a site assistant!