It’s outrage time! Mooboo, a bubble tea place, apparently pay their staff the national minimum wage and employ them on a zero-hours contract. Cite. Yet they expect the staff to work for a week for free.
It’s not just working full time for no money. Because the ‘interviewee’ is working full time, they’re ineligible for unemployment benefits. So they doubly lose out.
And apparently they’re sexist, only employing women.
About 10 years ago I interviewed for a Security company. They wanted me to work 2 weeks for free as “training”, with zero guarantee of a job after that.
In my late teens and my twenties, before and during my time as an undergraduate, i worked in a variety of bartending and food service and hospitality jobs.
This sort of unpaid, on-the-job training or evaluation period was illegal then and, from what i can tell, it would still be illegal in Australia now. A couple of hours might be acceptable, or even a single shift, depending on what skills you needed to demonstrate, but there’s no way that a full week of shifts would be considered lawful under the Australian rules.
As long as they serve drinks for free to their customers during a one week trial period after which you can decide whether you want to pay or not, I’ve no problem with the concept.
If you’ve ever been sipping a Snapple with a straw and thought “I know what would make this better— a bunch of tiny, flavorless gelatinous balls!” then bubble tea may be for you.
Poor people are doing it to gain a foothold in a low-paying job. Magnanimous and compassionate liberals must protect “these people” from themselves.
Unpaid internships are when people with well-off families are working for free to gain a foothold in a high-paying or otherwise desirable career.
Now if this company is not effectively communicating the nature of the employment situation with the workers, there may be a valid complaint. Otherwise, it is a mutually agreed-upon arrangement in which both parties believe they are better off participating than not participating.
My friend had a similar arrangement. “Shadowed” (read: worked) a manager along with a few other interviewees and had to do tasks. It was made clear that this was an interview, and he would not be compensated for his time or effort. They carpooled to numerous sites as part of the job, with the manager driving.
At the time they took a late lunch at a fast food restaurant, my friend made it clear that he was misled as to the job, and that he didn’t think it’d be a good fit. The manager said that he didn’t have time to take my friend back to his car, and he’d have to get an Uber back to the company HQ, as the manager was on a tight schedule.
Even if he would have stuck it out for the full day, he wouldn’t have been compensated for working.