Recently, there has been growing conversation about unpaid internships, and the lack of protection given to the young interns. There is estimated to be between 100 000 and 300 000 unpaid internship positions available in Canada, and because they are all covered under provincial work laws it is very difficult to moderate their rights. However, I think that abusive internship conditions and unpaid internships are completely different issues.
Many companies take on interns even if they ultimately slow things down at times because of the inevitable learning process; internships provide great benefits for the interns, and if they didn’t there would be no unpaid interns. Abusive working conditions for interns is a completely separate issue and should not be related to any talks regarding unpaid interns. Abuse in any working environment, whether paid or unpaid, is bad and needs to be dealt with. Â Trying to strengthen the argument that interns are taken advantage of by adding that they are unpaid sends the wrong message, adding pay to an abusive job doesn’t justify the abuse. If interns want to successfully improve their working conditions, they must separate the two arguments.
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