Young workers need certainty that the Directive on Traineeships, proposed today by the European Commission, will effectively ban unpaid internships.
The European Parliament has voted a number of times for unpaid traineeships to be banned – trade unions now call on Members of the European Parliament to ensure that measure is included in the final directive.
The proposed Directive is a part of the package to Reinforce a Quality Framework for Traineeships. While the ETUC welcomes the stated intention to ban unpaid traineeships in the Council Recommendations of the package, the specific language in the Directive needs to be made water-tight.
Sharpening the language:
- Scope: improvements are needed to ensure no space is left to misinterpretations that would leave the most vulnerable at risk of exploitation.
- Responsibility: the obligation to ensure quality traineeships must be clearly placed on member states and employers. Any possibility of leaving it up to victims or to already over-stretched labour authorities to take action must be ruled out.
ETUC Confederal Secretary Tea Jarc said:
“Unpaid traineeships mean bright young people from working class backgrounds are locked out of many careers because they can’t afford to work for free. It is a deeply exploitative practice that embeds social inequality.
“The directive proposed today does little to address this scandal, giving yet another job to under-resourced labour authorities when the obligation should be on employers to deliver quality traineeships.
“The European Parliament, trade unions and citizens have consistently backed a ban on unpaid traineeships and it is now crucial that the demand is delivered in the final directive.”
