The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

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The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby jon » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:44 pm

Unpaid internships are unethical and uneconomical. Time to ban them: Cowan
Let’s stop this practice for good
Mar 27, 2014 James Cowan
Canadian Business magazine

Update: It was revealed Thursday that the Ontario Ministry of Labour will begin cracking down on unpaid interns at magazines, starting with Toronto Life and The Walrus. Both magazines will have to let go of (or pay) their interns, who, because they are not in school, do not meet the province’s employment standards for unpaid work.

Pity the intern who starts a career at Palantir Technologies, a data management company based in Palo Alto, Calif. Interns at this nerdy Shangri-La earn more than $7,000 a month, according to a study by salary-tracking firm Glassdoor—and that’s not counting perks like flexible schedules, on-site haircuts and a company retreat known as “HobbitCon.”

Yes, pity them: their next jobs will seem hellish slogs in comparison. Unless, of course, they end up working at Palantir, which is precisely the point. Companies like Palantir, Twitter (average monthly intern salary: $6,791) and Amazon ($5,631) are ravenous for new talent. They trade job experience and a paycheque for access to the next generation of brainiacs. But it’s not the firms wooing young talent that dominate the news—it’s the ones using interns as slave labour.

A rash of lawsuits by former interns seeking compensation has broken out in the U.S., against companies including Condé Nast and the Elite Modelling agency. There have been similar lawsuits in Canada, along with high-profile cases like HootSuite, a Vancouver tech firm, amending its call for unpaid help after accusations of violating B.C. labour laws.

As the issue roils, politicians have begun pondering the best response. Liberal MP Scott Brison called upon the federal government to begin tracking unpaid internships. Jonah Schein, an NDP member of the Ontario legislature, tabled a private member’s bill in early March calling for greater legal protection for unpaid interns, along with improved tracking.

Each is a timid response to a morally and economically indefensible practice. Workers across Canada are guaranteed a minimum wage. Exceptions are only allowed with justification—such as bartenders and wait staff who often earn a lower minimum wage because they supplement their income with tips.

The rationalizations for unpaid internships don’t leap that bar. The first defence, as expressed in a recent National Post headline, goes like this: “If unpaid internships are exploitation, why don’t the kids stay home?” If only they had that choice—but many such internships are required components of college or university courses. Schools desperate to prove the practical applications of their degrees are funnelling unpaid labourers to employers: the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver was justifiably ridiculed when it advertised for four unpaid busboy “internships,” but the jobs were defended by Vancouver Community College, who said “even dishwashing” is an education.

Proponents also argue that interns are auditioning for a real job. The evidence says otherwise. A National Association of Colleges and Employers survey found that unpaid interns were no better at landing job offers than those who did no internship; and unpaid interns were paid an average $1,366 less in their first job than students who started cold.

But, you say, if we force companies to pay their interns, they’ll just stop offering internships. That’s no great loss, given the menial tasks and poor prospects associated with these gigs. Further, in an era of constant fretting about the mismatch of skills and opportunities in our labour market, it is unhelpful to create the perception of long-term job prospects in sectors where they simply aren’t plentiful.

Unpaid internships depress wages by creating a pool of workers willing to work for free—and for no benefits, making them akin to the labourers brought to Canada under the much-maligned temporary foreign worker program. And they rob the government of tax, employment insurance and pension revenue.

There is cost to the employers as well, one that many companies are too short-sighted to see. Constantly recruiting, training and monitoring new workers is a drain on both time and money.

If young people need real world experience, then let them gain it through co-op programs, where there is tight co-ordination between school and employer. Or just pay them for their work.

The companies that truly value—and need—young workers will pay for the privilege of getting to know them.

James Cowan is deputy editor of Canadian Business
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby Mike Cleaver » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:58 pm

About time!
This practice has been abused since internships began (in my experience) in the '70s.
The interns are promised that if they do a good job they'll be hired at the end of the internship.
That rarely happened with companies taking advantage of the interns by extending the internship period indefinitely with promises of employment that almost always never materialized.
CHUM had internships in the '70s onward but they were paid positions, $15 dollars per hour plus benefits.
The newsroom always had at least two interns, one for morning drive and another for afternoon drive.
Interns who proved their worth were hired when full time jobs opened up, either at CHUM or one of the companies other stations.
The abuse of unpaid interns became worse as time went on and the corpse fell under the spell of cheapdom.
The last two corpse for whom I worked blatantly abused the internship system and almost none ever were hired.
Mike Cleaver Broadcast Services
Engineering, News, Voice work and Consulting
Vancouver, BC, Canada

54 years experience at some of Canada's Premier Broadcasting Stations
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby Tom Jeffries » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:33 pm

When I found out that some, if not all of the TV and Radio outlets were using unaid interns (the cheap asshats) - I was outraged.

Unless you are a Volunteer - working without explicit pay is called slavery.

The kids are told, work twelve months and then we’ll see if you will work out. The Kraft Dinner regimen fully in place, the keener with the (no doubt), a huge student loan debt, works like crazy but lo and behold at about month 11 - “sorry”. No job. And then a new group of suckers is brought in the tent.

Meanwhile the preening TV anchor making elephant bucks and scoring a massive 1.7 share are yelling at the kids to work like peons.

I have been against unpaid interns since I first ran across them and never changed my opinion.

Greedy owners really have some kind of karmic death wish, with this monstrosity, extant.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby Radio Addict » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:38 pm

Tom Jeffries wrote:When I found out that some, if not all of the TV and Radio outlets were using unaid interns (the cheap asshats) - I was outraged.

Unless you are a Volunteer - working without explicit pay is called slavery.

The kids are told, work twelve months and then we’ll see if you will work out. The Kraft Dinner regimen fully in place, the keener with the (no doubt), a huge student loan debt, works like crazy but lo and behold at about month 11 - “sorry”. No job. And then a new group of suckers is brought in the tent.

Meanwhile the preening TV anchor making elephant bucks and scoring a massive 1.7 share are yelling at the kids to work like peons.

I have been against unpaid interns since I first ran across them and never changed my opinion.

Greedy owners really have some kind of karmic death wish, with this monstrosity, extant.


man oh man, you sound like such bitter old fart Tom, you really do.
So many things you failed to learn and understand about the industry while you were part of it. You, like most people on the air, who never had significant contracts in earlier days, and for good reason. You were training.... At least you were making something, unlike today with this 'Intern Bullshit', which broadcasters should be ashamed of participating in, but they made deals with government programs such as BCIT, NAIT and SAIT in Alberta

Tom, you have this liberal mentality that money grows on trees. Be realistic for once in your life. Just where do you think the money comes from?
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby Rich Elwood » Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:52 am

Hey Radio Addict,

I agree with Tom and the others. Media corporations have the money to pay new people...even if it's minimum wage.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby jon » Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:17 am

Historically, Internships, at least here in Edmonton, started out with the best of intentions. Post secondary programs were getting tarred and feathered for not being in sync with what education local businesses wanted when they hired fresh graduates. The Work Term was created back in the '80s where one Semester (half a school year) of the program was paid employment at one of these local businesses. Minimum wage? Yes, most if not all.

Those programs worked out well, and became natural successors to the informal programs that existed prior, mostly for University students with their long summers (May to August), where you worked for a company for the summer and, if they liked you, hired you upon graduation. Some even required some part-time work while you were going to school.

There was one important change from Summer Job to Work Term. If you messed up in a Work Term, you endangered your diploma/degree.

How did we get to Unpaid Internships from Work Terms? I don't know, but the bigger issue, in my mind, than No Pay is that you can endanger your diploma/degree. Which means that a nasty boss can blackmail you, by threatening to complain to the school and endanger your diploma/degree. Whether that is extra hours or work that is outside your job (remember the old joke about washing the boss' car?).

Not to downplay the No Pay aspect. It creates the ridiculous situation where an Intern can pick up paid work from the same employer, on top of the unpaid Intern work. Which means, even with only half hour meal breaks, 17 hours per day. More, if the Intern work is not limited to 8 work hours per day, which many are not. And more if the paid work includes some overtime. Then, of course, there are split shifts, and pretty soon the individual might only get a few naps in their vehicle in the parking lot or a quiet corner of the building over each 24 hour day.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby pave » Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:08 am

I worked for one outfit that only accepted female interns - so long as they arrived with big boobs.
Classless and bush-league thugs, they were.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby jon » Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:09 pm

Given more thought, I think that this whole situation could be resolved solely from the Post Secondary educational institute side, without any need for any more regulations than we already have for employers.

If schools were completely barred from receiving any "employer" input on individual students working, paid or free, for any outside party, that would solve the problem. In other words, students could not have their graduation or even their marks influenced by any work they do for others.

Yes, that means that anyone could still work for free as an Intern. But they would then be free to say "No" to tasks they don't want to do, long hours, abusive behaviour, etc. And even sue over broken promises, such as a paid job in six months. Although they would risk not being able to work for that organization (where they were Interning) in the future, they would have nothing to risk at school or at potential future employers, so long as they make no mention of the organization where they interned on their resume or list of references.

The complete banning of Interns would likely make it impossible to hang around stations like so many did in the past, to learn and get their start in the business. It might even mean that businesses would have to stop doing charitable work because they could no longer use Volunteers for that work.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby cart_machine » Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:02 am

jon wrote:Yes, that means that anyone could still work for free as an Intern. But they would then be free to say "No" to tasks they don't want to do, long hours, abusive behaviour, etc.


Intern: "No, I don't want to play that Jay-Z tune. I'll just sit here and dick around on my Twitter feed or hit on the receptionist instead."

Yeah, Jon, that'd go down real well.

cArtie.
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Re: The Death of (Unpaid) Internships?

Postby jon » Tue Apr 08, 2014 7:08 am

cart_machine wrote:
jon wrote:Yes, that means that anyone could still work for free as an Intern. But they would then be free to say "No" to tasks they don't want to do, long hours, abusive behaviour, etc.


Intern: "No, I don't want to play that Jay-Z tune. I'll just sit here and dick around on my Twitter feed or hit on the receptionist instead."

Yeah, Jon, that'd go down real well.

cArtie.

That's a negative? Sounds like a great way for a station to know who they would never want to hire.
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