A couple of months ago I went along to a meeting with a magazine that was looking for new contributors. In my experience, during the course of a standard meeting such as this, both sides look for ways that they can work together in a way that will be mutually beneficial. Usually this means: They get my writing, I get paid. End of story.

This meeting turned out a little differently though. Instead of agreeing a word rate, I was informed that they don’t pay their contributors. A little thrown, I asked whether this was while they were just starting up (remembering as I asked that they had been in business for over two years). ‘No,’ came the reply. ‘We don’t play our contributors at all’.

*Amazed face*.

Unfortunately, it seems that such situations are not rare. It seems that in the online publishing world especially, people the country over are churning out copy for nary a penny. As a print journalist I was a little under prepared for this. In my world, I write, I get paid. That’s how it works, right?

Apparently not all the time. It seems that working for free is now dressed up as it’s more attractive older sister – and it’s going by the name of ‘opportunity’. That’s right, you only have to have a look around you at the new graduates scrabbling for job opportunities – if you can’t get a paying gig the next best thing – so they are told – is to work for free as an intern. In the interests of gaining experience and having something pretty to put on your resume, people are effectively working as unpaid slaves in order to get a foot in the door. Find yourself wanting to work in a highly competitive industry, and it’s even worse – fashion, glossy magazines, publishing – it seems there is virtually no such thing as an entry-level position anymore because employers have realised, why pay someone when there will be hundreds of kids out there willing to do this for FREE? Just call it an unpaid internship and they’ll be lining up at the door to get a crack at it.

From the side of the employer, this is a terrible thing. It not only takes advantage of eager young people desperate for the slightest advantage, but it ensures that some careers are virtually inaccessible to those without the means to support themselves while working for free. It means that sure, you can work unpaid for Vogue for a year, but only if you have parents or a partner able (and willing) to support you in the meantime. Lots of people aren’t that lucky, so they are effectively pushed out of the market.

At this point it’s easy to blame the employers, but, hey, who can blame them? If you can get something for free, why pay for it? This needs to be addressed by the government to bring in some kind of statutory payment plan for interns.

But on the side of the employee – is it right to work for free? Does it get you anywhere? It might give you something to put on your resume, but in the process of doing so you are undervaluing not just your own work, but the work of every other person in that industry. So you are getting ahead in the short term but disadvantaging yourself in the long term. I could have taken the ‘opportunity’ offered me by that magazine, but I didn’t because I don’t believe that it is ethically correct to undervalue the market in that way. Many professions, some aspects of journalism included, are terribly underpaid, and as long as there are a stream of people willing to work free to gain experience, that is never going to change. And the same goes for all industries; as long as there’s someone waiting to do your job for free, you are never going to be paid what you’re worth.

What do you think? Is it ever a good idea to work for free?