Activists from the ScamBridge campaign say they welcome the decision of BoyleSports to cut from ten to one the amount of unpaid JobBridge 2.0 positions it is looking to fill following online campaigning.
However protesters at BoyleSports locations across the country today urged the company to drop the remaining ad, and instead creap “decent, paid jobs”.
Yesterday activists from the ScamBridge campaign, UCD Students Union and UNITE trade union youth committee announced plans to protest outside BoyleSports shops across the country.
They were complaining about an ad placed by BoyleSports seeking 10 interns on the new ‘Work Placement Experience Programme’.
However, following the online campaign, at around 9:30pm last night the ad was removed, and at around 10:30am this morning it was replaced with a new ad seeking only one intern on the scheme
ScamBridge spokesperson Paul Murphy TD said:
“BoyleSports is a massively profitable company – they don’t need any free labour, funded by the taxpayer.
“Last year they had an estimated turnover of €1.5bn, and their online business has been booming.
“They can well afford to create actual paid jobs.
“This JobBridge 2.0 positions are really exploitation scams, with the company getting free labour, while the worker gets only €3.43 an hour paid by the tax payer.
“I’m glad to see they have responded to public pressure by cutting their usage of this scam, but they still have no excuse to be using it at all.
“Yet again we have seen that it takes protests from ScamBridge to push back on the gross abuses of this scheme. But that just begs the question – what are those meant to be regulating this scheme doing?
The ScamBridge campaign together with Uplift.ie, UCD Students Union and UNITE Youth Committee launched a petition today calling for the JobBridge 2.0 scheme to be scrapped. Paul Murphy TD said:
“It’s clear this whole scheme is being abused left right and centre. Not only is it undermining wages of existing workers, it is actively blocking the creation of decent paid jobs, by instead encouraging bosses to use unpaid interns instead.
“It’s great to see the trade unions and student unions begin to take up this issue too, and join us in launching this petition to scrap JobBridge 2.0 and replace it with a green jobs programme”.
Meanwhile figures released by the Department show slow take up of the new scheme launched in July of this year.
While the government has targeted 10,000 participants in the scheme, so far there are only 45 on placements, according to the MInister for Social Protection.
As of September 23rd only 50 participants been approved to start their placements on the scheme, however 1 in 10 had already dropped off, leaving only 45 on the scheme.