YOUNG workers face increased exploitation after a bid to ban unpaid trial shifts failed, campaigners have warned.
The UK Government blocked a Private Members Bill by SNP MP Stewart McDonald in the Commons. Tory ministers said they did not think more regulations were needed.
However, a youth trade union group, maintained young people were increasingly being forced to work unpaid trial shifts.
Better Than Zero, which campaigns against zero hour contracts in the hospitality industry, said there was often little prospect of employment from the trials.
The group said McDonald's bill would have helped protect young workers.
A spokesman said: ’This week we have been supporting the work of MPs to put unpaid trials on trial at the place that lays down the law – the Houses of Parliament.
"It is just one face of the under-payment and non-payment of work which exploitative companies use to boost their profits in hospitality, retail and other sectors."
The group said it had accounts of young workers being asked to do work trials and sign contracts agreeing that they would not be paid.
A Glasgow bar worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "I was managing to get through my trial shift and then around an hour and a half in I was handed a piece of paper that said this was an unpaid three-hour trial shift and that I wouldn't be getting paid. They made me sign it on the spot.
"When my shift was coming to an end the manager took me upstairs and asked if I liked it, then told me there were 'around 20 other trials coming in so they'd let me know if I got the job'.
"I did the maths and reckoned that if they had 20+ trial shifts coming in each week, that's over 60 hours of free labour."
McDonald said he would continue his campaign to ban unpaid trial shifts, despite his bill being talked out by Tory MPs. The tactic is routinely used at Westminster to prevent a debate or vote on a bill, meaning it has no chance of becoming law.
The Glasgow South MP, said: "The Tories might have used parliamentary trickery to prevent my bill passing today, but the SNP campaign to change the law and improve workers’ rights will continue.”
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