IT is disgraceful that unscrupulous employers, some of them in Bolton, are taking advantage of young people's desperation for jobs by making them work for nothing for six months.

That situation is intolerable and every effort must be made to clamp down on these firms.

But the idea of using teenage spies to expose unprincipled employers is equally abhorrent.

Campaigners at the Salford TUC Centre think differently. They want to recruit teenagers to go undercover and apply for jobs in the Bolton and Salford areas to expose the practice .

We have consistently opposed using young people in this way. The end did not justify the means in previous instances involving cigarettes and fireworks and it does not now. Children may perceive it as a game but it is more sinister than that.

It would be far better to alert the young people, their teachers and parents about getting full details about jobs, pay and training, rather than to use sneaky, underhand methods which would demean any teenagers who took part in the exercise.

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