Unpaid "trial shifts" should be illegal...

I had a trial shift yesterday for a bar... it was 4 hours unpaid work despite my CV showing I have plenty of bar experience. I almost didn't take the job because I couldn't be bothered to spend 4 hours of my life working for a company I don't know if I care about working with for free. It's a total joke that they are allowed to do this. There is no other sector where this would be acceptable. Most employees are on a 0 hours contract anyway so if they turn out to be crap then they should just not give them any hours... they should still be compensated for their time and work that they have given the company. I also haven't heard of anyone not getting a job after a trial shift so I think businesses literally just use it for a few hours free labour.



Why is this allowed?

It is illegal. The issue is that people don't enforce their rights.

If you get the job, ask for it to be paid. If you don't, bring an unlawful deduction from wages claim in the Tribunal ... I guarantee you that the company will shell out rather than allow it to go to a hearing.

It isn't illegal because you aren't an employee.

https://www.unlockthelaw.co.uk/News/is-it-legal-not-to-be-paid-for-a-trial-shift/1050416304.html

Both employees and workers are entitled to the national minimum wage for all hours worked. There are a limited number of exceptions to that and the only one that could be applicable here is if the individual is a true 'volunteer' (i.e. nobody can tell them what time to turn up or leave, and they can genuinely turn up or not as they wish without penalty). I do not consider that to be the case in circumstances where an employee's potential employment is on the line - they don't have free choice.

Even according to the link that you have posted, being asked to work more than a couple of hours for free is unacceptable. The OP in this case was asked to work 4.

I stand by my view that this is unlawful and the OP is entitled to NMW in the circumstances. A potential employee should certainly be asking themselves some questions about whether they really want to work for the type of organisation that would prefer to get free work out of somebody for a few hours on spurious grounds, rather than just performing a sensible recruitment process to test the qualifications of a candidate for the role. If somebody turns out to be unsuitable for the role they are easily terminated at least for the first two years. That's plenty of time to trial somebody, it isn't necessary also to require them to be doing free work.

I think 4 hours is reasonable.

The employee is free to make their own decisions on who they want to work for.

In all my experience of work I have never been asked to do a trial shift, in fact I have never worked a job with shifts.

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Pre the 2008 crash, employers of crap jobs had to treat employees with just a bit of respect as there were less unemployed than required to fill the jobs. Nowadays, they have so many jobseekers they think they're doing anyone slaving away for them a big favour. They don't consider your time as having any value, you should be good and glad to get a trial unpaid shift or get unpaid breaks and all the rest of it. Crap job employers will only bother doing whatever is required by law, not a letter more.

Wrong, in the three months up until May 2017 unemployment is at its lowest rate since June 1975

I wonder how much of this jobs miracle is due to part time and / or insecure work. For such a booming economy, people sure don't seem to feel like it's the best times since 1975....

Whatever it's down at least people are working

Are you a fan of the minimum wage?