Unpaid work issue not black and white
Experts and youth have mixed opinions on the ethics and merits of working for free
Governors of the Bank of Canada don’t often become notorious, but that’s exactly what has happened to Stephen Poloz when he recommended that unemployed young people take unpaid work earlier this week.
“When I bump into youths, they ask me, you know, ‘What am I supposed to do in a situation?’ ” he told reporters in Ottawa Monday. “I say, look, having something unpaid on your CV is very worth it because that’s the one thing you can do to counteract this scarring effect. Get some real-life experience even though you’re discouraged, even if it’s for free.” The next day, before a House of Commons committee, Poloz reiterated the advice. The case against When Poloz’s comments began circulating Tuesday, the online response was quick, harsh and mocking. “Bank of Canada Governor asks unemployed youth if they’ve considered serfdom,” read a headline on the satirical website the Beaverton.
The Twitter account Limericking, which makes poems out of current events, summed up the firestorm neatly: “The statement by Stephen Poloz/ That unemployed youth have good cause/ To labour for free/ (“It builds one’s CV”)/ Was met with ironic applause.”
With the unemployment rate for people between the ages of 15 and 24 standing at 12.6 per cent the subject stoked passions among labour lawyers, youth advocates and public policy experts.
Unpaid internships break labour laws, increase income inequality, devalue the work of young people, and are fundamentally unfair, they say.
“It’s a pretty basic ask: we’re just asking for minimum wage,” said Claire Seaborn, a member of the executive team at the Canadian Intern Association.
“I don’t think we should, as young people, be accepting this culture where people work for months or sometimes years unpaid.”
Seaborn knows first-hand the benefits that internships can afford young, ambitious people — whether or not the jobs come with a paycheque. She was once part of a group that interned for no pay at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The stint left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“Although we were happy with the experience we had, we thought it was hugely unfair,” she said. “Essentially they’re saying to become a diplomat or work for the government, you have to come from a wealthy background.”
It’s a common argument: unpaid internships benefit people with rich parents who can support them while they garnish their CVs with flashy but unprofitable gigs at think tanks, magazines and non-profit organizations.
Of course, while internships may be unpaid, universities actually charge tuition. Seen in another light, unpaid internships are free.
Seaborn rejects that line of reasoning, noting that universities and colleges often extend low-interest loans and other forms of financial aid to needy students, making them more accessible than the world of unpaid work.
Kaylie Tiessen, an economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said internships are thickening the barriers to middle-class employment. “The price of entry into these middle- and upper-income jobs is already very steep,” she said. “Tuition is rising.”
One estimate put the number of unpaid interns in Canada at 300,000, but there is no reliable data on the subject. That also makes it hard to track whether the positions are leading to paid jobs.
Toronto-based labour lawyer Andrew Langille sees the trend of unpaid work as a “race to the bottom,” with employers given little incentive to offer decent wages to young workers.
There are stringent laws governing internships in Ontario, with employers required to meet a list of criteria including that they derive “little, if any, benefit from the activity of the intern.”
“We have labour laws in place for a reason — to prevent exactly what Mr. Poloz is suggesting,” Langille said.
“He’s making this a problem that individuals have to deal with. But it’s not an individual problem. It’s a structural problem and a societal problem.” The case for The case against unpaid internships is clear: people should receive money for work and rich youths don’t need another leg up.
You wouldn’t know it from reading Twitter, but some people are on Poloz’s side. Despite the flood of criticism that descended on the country’s monetary policy chief, some former interns and career counsellors quietly agree that the controversial labour practice isn’t so bad. They counter that unpaid internships provide training that can be converted into valuable resumé fodder, not to mention better skills and employment prospects.
Mark Franklin, founder of the Toronto-based CareerCycles, says that short-term, clearly defined volunteer positions and internships often pay off in the long term for young workers entering competitive fields. He criticized Poloz for alluding to kids who live in their parents’ “basements,” which some felt suggested contempt.
Still, Franklin agreed that doing unpaid jobs was sometimes the right decision for the young and out-ofwork.
“Lots of people want to gain experience and one of the ways people do that is through voluntary activities,” he said. Bronwen Jervis, 30, is a former intern whose six-month unpaid stint at the Walrus from the summer of 2011 to early 2012 quickly landed her an editorial assistant job at Toronto Life. Not all internships are created equal, she’s quick to note, saying some are exploitative and a waste of time. But at the Walrus — which was forced to shut down its unpaid internships after an Ontario Ministry of Labour inspection in March, and re-opened the program about a month later with pay — Jervis learned valuable journalistic skills like fact-checking, she said. “If that’s the kind of work you’re doing, you’re not getting paid but you’re gaining all kinds of marketable experience,” she said. The experience was tantamount to a term at journalism school: unpaid, yes, but also tuition-free. Living on her savings — she was 26 when she started at the Walrus — she got a chance to prove that she had “the chutzpah, judgment and decorum” to work in the industry, she said. Though the magazine didn’t hire Jervis at the end of her contract — it employs a small group of editors and no staff writers — she landing a gig at Toronto Life three months later. Journalism isn’t the only field where unpaid work has led to a fulltime job. “It was because I had been there that I was considered,” said Zoe Fregoli, a one-time intern at Action Against Hunger, who now has a paid position with the charity. And while opponents of unpaid internships base part of their argument on the belief, or the hope, that firms will replace volunteer positions with paid jobs, that isn’t always the case. St. Joseph Communications, the company that publishes Toronto Life, has shuttered many of its unpaid intern positions since the province’s March crackdown, and unlike the Walrus, it has not replaced them with paid fellowships. Douglas Knight, president of the company’s media group, says they simply can’t afford to pay people for the work that interns did — staff members now do it.