Should employers charge for work experience?

February 17, 2010

work experience

Blade is intrigued by the idea that employers should charge for work experience.

Granted, it would bring in a little extra income. And in these perilous times, businesses need to be as left-field as Ryan Giggs (and as creative, too) to find new ways of bringing in revenue.

But to charge for work experience is also to create a contractual relationship. And where there’s a contract, there’s a lawyer. Where there’s a lawyer, there’s a fee to be paid. And if a young intern feels that the fee he or she handed over for the privilege of work experience wasn’t worth it, there could also be litigation.

Perhaps, lest we enter “it’s only the lawyers who win” territory, work experience should remain a much sought after boon, but one which is sans cash.

Image, with curious spelling, courtesy of thinkpublic.

 

2 Responses to “Should employers charge for work experience?”

Posted by:
Penelope Swift on February 18, 2010 at 3:38 pm

That is creative, not curious, spelling. Language is Protean, remember: not Procrustean.

Posted by:
uberVU - social comments on February 21, 2010 at 4:14 am

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The Sea: A Holy Hush?

July 25, 2010

For a certain poet, an unspoiled stretch of seaside was like “the holy hush there is in the land on Christmas morning. The roads fairly empty, the sky almost free of aeroplanes and you begin to hear and see and smell once more”.

But who uttered these lines?

(It’s a Monday, and this is your starter for 10 – and yes, we’re fresh to the metropolis, from a coastal sojourn.)

Alastair Brett: Certainly Not Certifiably Insane

July 23, 2010

The following words appeared in a Times article in 2003, about the paper’s recently departed Head of Legal, Alastair Brett. They’ve been doing the rounds in the wake of Brett’s sudden exit last week, though without attribution. Who, we wonder, wrote them? Two suspects present themselves – our own occasional scribe, Alex Wade, and Dominic Carman, son of the late, great George (an old mucker of Brett’s). Or was someone else the author? Whatever: the fact remains that Brett was a fearless, tenacious and excellent newspaper lawyer, a man whose commitment to press freedom coursed through every vein in his body. We don’t know the precise reasons for his departure, but he will be missed.

“[He] is known for his impassioned commitment to press freedom – so impassioned that he has been described as “certifiably insane”. Capable of an intimidatory snarl or two, and prepared to be stubborn, Brett is far from mad. He is erudite, charming (so the ladies say), and not known for sitting on the fence. If his sanity has, tongue firmly in cheek, been questioned, one thing not open to doubt is that Brett epitomises the old school Fleet Street lawyer”.

Pictured: Fleet Street -  not the same as it used to be.

Black in the black if he wants to sue for libel

July 23, 2010

A curious observation leaps at us from Roy Greenslade’s piece about whether Conrad Black, shortly to roam the high-class hotels of the world again as a free man, will return to the UK and carry out his threat to sue his biographer, Tom Bower, for libel:

I somehow doubt that he would have the appetite, or the funds, to pursue a libel action, but Black marches to the sound of his own drummer, so he might just do that. Even if he did, my money would still be on Bower winning.

Hang on, Roy – what about suing via a no win, no fee deal? Funds or no funds, a CFA would see Conrad through – though maybe he’ll remember what happened to the last press baron who sued Bower. Anyone for Richard Desmond’s curious dalliance with libel?

Pictured: the kind of place in which Conrad Black may be spotted (if not at the Royal Courts of Justice).