Intern nation
Sara Dowse has written an article based on Ross Perlin’s Intern Nation, a study of the burgeoning practice of internship in the US, although Perlin did his own stint in a London NGO and the practice seems well-established there.
The article also links with Steven Greenhouse’s NY Times article The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not which apparently caused a stir.
The plain facts are that employers are getting away with murder, educational establishments are complicit, young people are being sold a crock, and a lot of talent is being wasted or, worst of all, excluded.
As to Australia, Dowse says:
internships here are becoming more common, as Australia’s economy becomes increasingly globalised and our society more Americanised. What this could signify for Gen Y and beyond is a future more precarious than anything we’ve known.
Perlin says:
“You shouldn’t have to work for free to break into the white-collar world. To allow that is to devalue work, threaten jobs, and exclude the less privileged.”
Working for free is a privilege differentially available to the well-connected and which not everyone can afford.
For a less than enthusiastic review of Perlin’s book, see Slant Magazine.
In The Telegraph Ed Cumming says:
It was interesting to note that Germany and Switzerland, both of which have recovered faster than Britain from the recession, have lower rates of internship and higher rates of traditional apprenticeship.
I agree that people shouldn’t have to work for free to break into white collar jobs. But in the area in which I work, film and television, people always start off by volunteering. I don’t know anyone, including myself, who didn’t put in a couple of years of unpaid labour.
As part of my engineering degree I had to have 12 weeks relevant work experience, though with the exception of non profits (who probably couldn’t afford it) there tended to be a culture of paying students a reasonable amount. I spent 3 of my xmas uni breaks working as an intern and did find it quite valuable, not just from a technical viewpoint but also getting experience in what sort of business I didn’t want to work for
Now having supervised interns my experience is that there is a huge variability in productivity – since its temporary and seen partly a service to students/universities there is a lot less filtering done in accepting students. So although my employer does pay students I can understand why some are reticent to – some interns really do end up contributing a net negative amount of work when you take into account the resources needed to supervise them. For the employer it can be a great try before you buy scheme – you know who to keep in contact with to try to employ when they graduate.
I never quite understand the difference between white- and blue-collar jobs. If you’re a tradie, you can get paid while doing ‘on the job learning’ (despite all the ACA stuff on apprentices being badly treated by some – all the apprentices I know have done pretty well out of their apprenticeships).
So why is it if you want a white collar job you have to pay for your education, live in poverty for a number of years while you attain said education, and then be expected to work for free or peanuts when you graduate?
Jess, in film it’s because the work is so competitive. There’s not the work for the number of people who want to do it, so what counts to a certain extent is persistence, desire and willingness to put the job first a great deal of the time.
Jess, traditionally it was for exactly the same reason as unpiad internships are used now – to filter out the lower classes. Poor people couldn’t afford to pay for the education and living costs while they went to university. At least that was better than the old boys club where you had to be invited into the guild to practice.
Then we got socialised education together with an expanded middle class so new restrictions have evolved, but both those problems have largely been solved in the US and it looks as though Australia is heading down the same path.
Fine @ 1, I’m a bit shocked that people should be expected to work so long for nothing. clearly it excludes those who can’t keep body and soul together without some income. The fact that it’s the norm doesn’t make it right.
Work experience for students during their studies seems to me a different issue to what is being addressed in the article and Perlin’s book.
It’s Sara rather than Sandra Dowse.
Thanks, MC, fixed.
I’m not arguing it’s right, Brian. The huge majority of film work is casual. So, when people are beginning they tend to bounce between menial paid jobs (hospitality, call centre etc) and volunteer production work, until someone starts paying them for their labour.
I always feel like telling film students the best career advice I can give them is marry someone rich.
In broad terms, unionization with its attendant award conditions should be seen as a transitional phase between the strictly hierarchical guild system and the floating, free-form systems that may involve various forms of internship. In economies dominated by tertiary and quaternary industries, great armies of workers united by similar experiences simply don’t exist.
Gone are horizontal relationships between comrades. In their place arise again patronage and clientage between individuals with more and less power.
I started my career as a geology trainee and have had trainees and vac students working for me at various stages of my career in the mining and research industries. The deal I got as a trainee was a good one. I got an income that grew as I progressed and a day off per week for study. In return I spent most of my time at work doing things like drill core logging, recording results, working as a lab assistant and over time taking over tasks that would otherwise have to be done by a higher paid graduate. In addition I ended up working for the company who supplied the traineeship for over thirty years.
In the case of vac students they got a couple of months pay to help them live in comparative luxury over the next year, some training and development as well as a better chance of getting a job on graduation if they did a reasonable job. In return the company got some useful work in the form of assistance with tests helping graduates etc. In addition we got the results of the project work the student did as part of the work experience. I can think of a number of projects that were worth enough to to pay for many years of vac student work.
My comment re vac students and trainees is that they can offer value in return for training and development if the effort is taken to allocate work sensibly.
And, John D, effort is more likely to be taken to allocate work sensibly if employers are paying for the labour. Part of the objection seems to be that interns are given shit-work that does nothing to enhance their skills.
Brian: Precisely. However, I got the sense that the more cynical were getting value out of interns without paying them anything or giving them experience. It is difficult though to assess what is useful. A smart intern should get a better understanding re what the business is about, how workplaces really work and some of the differences between good and bad management even though they are doing shit work for a shit company.
The whole arts and entertainment sector is full of ‘interns’ sometimes for 3 months or so unpaid work… for the experience – of course!! This sector is also about ‘contacts’ and ‘referees.’ So can be very useful for aspirationals, as Fine points out also for film and tv, who want to get into an industry.
Different to traineeships and holiday works as possibly no money involved at all. Seems to be on the increase with positions as interns being advertised on arts/entertainment employment listings. Good or bad… better to have some experience than none. Gives punters a chance to try out see if they like it, can cope etc. Gives employers a try before you buy scenario.
The issue seems to be when the internships are factored into the production line (so to speak) budgeted for etc. This would seem to be the US experience. And it would seem across a lot of different types of business, not just those who can’t afford it.
And I think it is on increase here. But I tend to think it be better if organisations that have this practice should structure it into traineeships or stipend positions – even for limited time – to that it is not just volunteer work. Actually be better for the organisations themselves to work appropriate objectives and structure of what they want/need and set it up.
When I get caught working absurd hours 7 days/week I find myself expecting a whole raft of people to be doing the same silly thing. It is a case of becoming desensitized. So as more and more people go thru the unpaid intern thing the expectation grows that people will work freebies when they are new graduates “because that was what I had to put up with.”
No easy answer.
Charlie, my daughter had an art history major in her basic degree, and at one time aspired to work in galleries. She couldn’t afford to work for nothing. For the real jobs it appeared you had to know someone.
That avenue was closed off so she did something else with her life.
The rise of internships is indicative of
much more than 5% unemployment
extreme competition for desirable jobs
loss of social mobility, internships reinforce class divisions
increase in share of national income paid as profits flowing to capital and decrease in share of national income paid in wages
When I started work with a pass degree at age 20 I was paid a wage sufficient to save for 12 months and get a mortgage in Middle Park or Glen Iris on a house equal to my annual gross wage. Today’s young people are more likely to be 25 to 30 before they get permanent work then their housing will cost 6 times their annual wage.
Italy is notorious for its system of internships
It’s not only white collar workers who do unpaid work experience.
Internships are more or less mandated by a lot of higher education bodies, both University and TAFE courses often will require hundreds apon hundreds of hours of ‘work experience’. Employers are very aware of the situation, so feel no market pressure to pay trainees.
There’s a nightmare around insurance, and workers comp for interns.
In the mid 90′s I undertook a TAFE course that required that I gain 600 hours of work experience certified by someone with qualifications equal to or excedeing the certificate I was chasing. I was running my own business at the time, which couldn’t count towards the hours. I had to work 7 days per week to have 2 unpaid days per week of ‘experience’ and drop some clients to fulfill the criteria.
Waste of time really. The qualification was discontinued, me with one more elective to complete. LOL LOL LOL
Most teaching courses require prac teaching to qualify. If anything, prac teachers add to net costs even if they aren’t paid. The same can be said for many of the mandated work experience requirements.
I think that mandated work experience should be eliminated from all graduation requirements. It should be up to employers to work out how they want to ease the newly qualified into a job. Time can be saved if the experience is targeted to the job.
The problem with your suggestion, JohnD, is that it means employers would have to start bearing some of the costs of training again. (I’m not saying that there aren’t employers who do now anyway, but a lot of them have saved a bundle over the years by outsourcing and off-shoring their training costs.)