Petition Make unpaid work (including unpaid overtime) illegal.

Although there is a minimum wage in the UK, it is still legal to pay workers nothing at all.

Students/graduates often take unpaid internships purely to get experience, and are used to do menial work e.g. filing, photocopying etc that would normally be done by a paid office junior.

Many staff are pressurised by employers into doing additional work, outside office hours, for no extra pay. This means that the employer can avoid taking on the extra staff required to do the work. It also makes a mockery of the minimum wage.

Many services are now staffed partly by volunteers, for example the Police and the Army. Voluntary work should be allowed for registered charities only.

Petitioners agree that making unpaid work illegal will reduce unemployment, reduce the deficit (with more people paying income tax), and redistribute wealth from corporations to workers.