Employment department says it cannot guarantee interns will not be asked to work shifts that would normally go to paid staff

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The government-funded PaTH internships could be used to avoid paying retail staff weekend penalty rates, according to the Department of Employment and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association.

The program is being expanded to allow 10,000 placements in the retail sector, including large chains such as Bakers Delight and Coffee Club, Malcolm Turnbull announced this week.

PaTH interns are paid $200 a fortnight by the government on top of their Centrelink payments and can work up to 50 hours a fortnight, including weekends. Businesses do not pay any of the intern’s wages and receive $1,000 for every intern they take on.



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According to a spokesman from the SDA, this means retailers can rely on government interns for weekend shifts and avoid paying penalty rates.

“There are no safeguards – that’s the nature of the internship,” he said. “Those who would otherwise normally be employed will be replaced by interns ... It frees retailers from applying penalty rates on weekends.”

Interns are placed for four to 12 weeks and can work weekends if that is a “normal part” of the host businesses’s trade.



A spokeswoman for the employment department could not guarantee that interns would not be asked to work weekend shifts that would ordinarily go to paid staff.

But she said businesses were not allowed to fire workers to make room for an intern, or reduce a paid staff member’s hours of employment overall which included weekends. Host businesses will also be required to provide a supervisor for every shift an intern is on.

However, unions said there were not enough safeguards to prevent businesses exploiting interns for weekend work, or routinely taking on new interns without hiring them.

“The Australian Retailers Association said they will be keeping a close eye on this, to make sure that doesn’t happen, but they’ve not articulated any particular system to audit compliance,” an SDA spokesman said. “[At what] point will a business be disqualified? After they’ve gone through a dozen interns? Half a dozen? By the government’s own admission, only 15% of people are getting jobs. This endless merry-go-round could go on and on.

“The fact of the matter is that employers and retailers don’t put on more staff than they need and all retailers will be doing is adhering to the rules set by the federal government.”

The employment department told Guardian Australia that it would monitor the program and could disqualify businesses based on data analytics, feedback from workers and job seeker surveys.



However, the “details of indicators to trigger reviews” were said to not be publicly available.

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Monday’s announcement of the retail partnership came days after the Fair Work Commission’s cuts to penalty rates came into effect, leaving many weekend workers with a reduction in take-home pay.



The policy director at Interns Australia, Clara Jordan-Baird, told the Guardian on Monday that the PaTH program could potentially normalise internships and free work in the retail sector.



“It shouldn’t be normal to pop into your local Coffee Club and see an ‘intern’ waitress working for free,” she said.

PaTH internships are available to young jobseekers between 17 to 24 who are registered with the government’s Jobactive, Transition to Work or disability employment services.

In June it was announced that 5,000 interns had been placed since the scheme began in January.