In April 2024 new National Minimum Wage legislation was passed and WWOOF UK undertook a review of our operations to ensure our compliance. Since these changes in UK law it is important that all hosts are up to date with their knowledge of the legislation to ensure their personal compliance.
Please see our latest guidance on this topic below.
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| Hello hosts, Thank you for bearing with us during this challenging time of National Minimum Wage (NMW) changes and we apologise for a period of silence. It’s been an intense process but finally we’re very pleased to announce we’ve agreed on a path forward. Before we get into detail, it’s important we clearly communicate that it’s highly unlikely WWOOF hosting could be viewed as a NMW infringement as long as hosting criteria are being met and participation guidelines are being followed. Correspondence made available to us from MPs indicates amended NMW legislation was not intended to impact educational WWOOFing experiences; it was meant to guard against exploitation. In other words, to the best of our understanding, it is fine to continue with active hosting within these guidelines. Our path forward will closely follow what we described as ‘The USA Model’ during our online Zoom call. This means two things. Firstly, it’s essential we tighten up on hosting criteria and the experience offered by hosts by underscoring the learning element and guarding against exploitation. Secondly, we will need to alter the vocabulary around what WWOOF offers.To this end, the actions we must ask from you by 1st August 2024 are as follows:Remove activities (and mention of such) that can be seen as substitute for hired labour It is critical that WWOOFing is not used as, or could not be seen as, a substitute for hiring paid labour. It is acceptable to offer a relevant immersive learning experience – on an organic market garden for instance – but attention is particularly drawn to any hospitality enterprise (e.g. glamping, AirBnB) at a host site. To quote directly from the hosting criteria “activities such as cleaning a guesthouse or a campsite, helping with cooking for commercial purposes, serving in the dining room or welcoming customers are prohibited and may be the subject of membership termination.” Review and amend wording on your host profile All hosts are required to review and amend the wording of their description and the activities they offer to ensure these are in line with the hosting criteria and participation guidelines. Some examples of what wording changes might look like are listed below. Words or phrases to avoid in order to remove any indication of a contract or subordination or payment in kind: ‘work’ ‘exchange’ (describing a ‘cultural exchange’ or a ‘learning exchange’ is fine, but implying that WWOOFing is a quid pro quo or obligation-based exchange is not) requirements or expectations around work / exchange hours ‘volunteers’ (because NMW legislation now states that volunteers who have food and accommodation provided are entitled to NMW if they are not volunteering directly with a charity. While WWOOF UK itself is a charity, most hosts are not.) Phrases you can and should use instead: visitors guests WWOOFers having an ‘immersive learning experience’ ‘offering educational opportunities’ WWOOFers can ‘participate in activities’ guests are ‘sharing in the daily life of the host’ a good tip is to describe your own daily routine with WWOOFers, so they can gauge what the experience might look like e.g. add detail to a basic format of ‘we start looking at things to be done at 9.30am, pause at 1pm for a lunch hour and finish at 4pm’. Important note: hosts can still ask a WWOOFer to leave if they are not willingly or fully participating in the opportunity being offered. Whilst changing vocabulary is comparatively simple, we understand the tightening of criteria will mean some hosts have to reconsider their membership with us, and that is regrettable. However it’s clear that WWOOF cannot continue to look exactly the same as it did prior to April 2024’s legislation. We have no alternative but to make, monitor and maintain these changes if we are to keep the wonderful WWOOF charity within UK law. Thanks once again for bearing with us during this necessary evolution and if you have any further questions, let us know and we’ll do our best to answer them. With best wishes, The WWOOF UK Team |