Parabis is paying its London apprentices appreciably less than its cleaners.
The firm has advertised for apprentices in its London office for £192 a week in return for 35 hours' slog. That's £5.49 an hour. As the hapless employees are apprentices the firm can get away with paying them less than the national minimum wage, which is currently £6.50 an hour.
Pretty much every major London employer pays the London Living Wage as a benchmark for all staff. This is £9.15 an hour and is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet his or her basic needs. Parabis is paying its apprentices just over half that - they'd be considerably better off flipping burgers, sweeping the streets or cleaning the office loos. It is surely impossible to survive in London on this sort of salary.
Parabis makes it clear that the apprentices will be doing work for which the firm can charge. Research, preparing acknowledgments of service, chasing documents, photocopying, all the sorts of things paralegals generally do. For a fraction of the pay. The words "abuse of position" come to mind. It's possibly unsurprising that the firm's own staff handed it the Golden Turd last year...
A spokesman for the firm said "there are variations in pay dependent on the stage of qualifications of individuals or the region in which they are based. Salaries therefore do rise incrementally due to experience gained and qualifications achieved during the course of the apprenticeship programme."
Tip Off ROF
The firm has advertised for apprentices in its London office for £192 a week in return for 35 hours' slog. That's £5.49 an hour. As the hapless employees are apprentices the firm can get away with paying them less than the national minimum wage, which is currently £6.50 an hour.
Pretty much every major London employer pays the London Living Wage as a benchmark for all staff. This is £9.15 an hour and is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet his or her basic needs. Parabis is paying its apprentices just over half that - they'd be considerably better off flipping burgers, sweeping the streets or cleaning the office loos. It is surely impossible to survive in London on this sort of salary.
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A Parabis intern makes ends meet |
Parabis makes it clear that the apprentices will be doing work for which the firm can charge. Research, preparing acknowledgments of service, chasing documents, photocopying, all the sorts of things paralegals generally do. For a fraction of the pay. The words "abuse of position" come to mind. It's possibly unsurprising that the firm's own staff handed it the Golden Turd last year...
A spokesman for the firm said "there are variations in pay dependent on the stage of qualifications of individuals or the region in which they are based. Salaries therefore do rise incrementally due to experience gained and qualifications achieved during the course of the apprenticeship programme."
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Stay classy, Parabis
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