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Experience Or Exploitation?

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Experience Or Exploitation? The Nature, Prevalence and Regulation of Unpaid Work Experience, Internships and Trial Periods in Australia Experience or Exploitation? Andrew Stewart and Rosemary Owens Adelaide Law School Report for the Fair Work Ombudsman January 2013 The University of Adelaide SA 5005 Australia www.adelaide.edu.au facebook.com/uniofadelaide twitter.com/uniofadelaide youtube.com/universityofadelaide CRICOS 00123M Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................ ix 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 The Origins of the Project .......................................................................................... 1 The Focus of the Project ............................................................................................ 4 Preparing the Report ................................................................................................. 6 Structure of the Report ............................................................................................ 10 Thanks and Acknowledgements .............................................................................. 12 2. From Education to Work: The Global and Local Contexts ................................... 13 The ILO’s Perspective ............................................................................................... 13 Intern Nation ............................................................................................................ 17 The Australian Context ............................................................................................ 21 The challenges of globalisation ............................................................................ 22 Young Australians, work and education .............................................................. 24 3. The Nature and Prevalence of Unpaid Work Experience .................................... 28 Introduction: A Dearth of Official Data .................................................................... 28 Unpaid Trials ............................................................................................................ 31 Concerns and examples ....................................................................................... 32 The Young Workers Legal Service survey ............................................................ 36 FWO investigations .............................................................................................. 36 Government Assistance Programs ........................................................................... 38 Unpaid Work Experience in Education .................................................................... 40 The embrace of work integrated learning ........................................................... 40 Work experience for secondary school students ................................................ 42 Work experience for university students ............................................................ 43 The Wider Use of Unpaid ‘Internships’ .................................................................... 51 What are internships?.......................................................................................... 51 iii How widespread are internships? ....................................................................... 53 Unpaid internships or work experience in the print and broadcast media ........ 54 Unpaid internships or work experience in legal services .................................... 56 Other industries and occupations ........................................................................ 58 Agencies ................................................................................................................... 61 Visa Holders ............................................................................................................. 62 Growth in international student numbers in Australia ....................................... 63 International students at work in Australia ......................................................... 65 Young tourists at work in Australia ...................................................................... 66 The vulnerability of some visa holders: problems for enforcement ................... 66 Conclusion: What Do We Know? ............................................................................. 69 4. Regulation of Unpaid Work Experience: The Fair Work Act ............................... 72 The Meaning of the Terms ‘Employer’ and ‘Employee’ .......................................... 72 Deemed Employees ................................................................................................. 75 The ‘Vocational Placement’ Exception .................................................................... 75 Background .......................................................................................................... 76 Case law ............................................................................................................... 76 Elements of the definition ................................................................................... 77 What does the exception cover? ......................................................................... 79 ‘Usually Employed’ ................................................................................................... 82 Effect of the Fair Work Act ....................................................................................... 84 Awards ................................................................................................................. 84 Enterprise agreements ........................................................................................ 85 National minimum wage ...................................................................................... 85 Other rights and obligations ................................................................................ 86 Consequences of non-compliance ....................................................................... 87 Summary .............................................................................................................. 88 iv 5. Regulation of Unpaid Work Experience: Other Laws .......................................... 89 State and Territory Industrial Laws .......................................................................... 89 Federal exclusion of State and Territory laws ..................................................... 89 General State industrial laws and their coverage ................................................ 91 Specific provisions on work experience in general industrial laws ..................... 94 Education and Training Laws ................................................................................... 95 Training contracts ................................................................................................ 96 Course-related placements .................................................................................. 97 Other regulation of work experience .................................................................. 99 Child Employment .................................................................................................. 100 Laws regulating working conditions for children............................................... 100 Laws regulating who can work with children .................................................... 103 Work Safety ............................................................................................................ 104 Workers Compensation ......................................................................................... 105 Discrimination ........................................................................................................ 107 Superannuation ...................................................................................................... 109 The Australian Consumer Law ............................................................................... 110 Misleading and deceptive conduct .................................................................... 110 Misleading information about proposed employment ..................................... 113 Unconscionable conduct .................................................................................... 114 6. A Key Legal Issue: Is There an Employment Contract? ...................................... 116 General Principles .................................................................................................. 116 The two requirements for an employment contract ......................................... 116 The general law of contract ............................................................................... 118 The distinctiveness of employment contracts ................................................... 120 Intention to Create Legal Relations ....................................................................... 123 Identifying an intention not to be bound .......................................................... 123 The role of presumptions .................................................................................. 126 Admissible evidence .......................................................................................... 128 v Consideration ........................................................................................................
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