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Should unpaid internships be banned from Australia/World?

Introduction When applying for jobs, one of the most deciding factors that applicants such as undergraduate students can impress employers with is their job history, particularly their experience in that field. Whether it was working in a team-based environment or the ability to achieve their Key Performance Indicators every week, experience plays a major part in determining whether the applicant is successful in their role. To gain the work experience in their field, applicants can work at an internship. According to the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) and internship is “a carefully monitored work or volunteer experience in which an individual has intentional learning goals and reflects actively on what he or she is learning throughout the experience”. They can last between several weeks to several months depending on the program and can also be unpaid. This issue is divisive as some students cannot afford to work full time hours with no pay and so they believe unpaid internships should be banned.

The Stakeholders For Tier 3 Employers Start-up companies Transport Industry Government of Australia

Against Undergraduates High school graduates

Table 1: Stakeholder For/Against

The state governments of Australia are mostly on the ‘for’ side of this topic. An example of this is the independent statutory office ‘Fair Work Ombudsman’. Their office oversees companies that wish to have interns and need to know if they can be paid or unpaid. For companies to have an unpaid internship, the intern must be a student or being a vocational placement and have no employment relationship with the company itself. Therefore, in the eye of the government, companies should be allowed to have unpaid interns.

In the media Article 1: ‘SHOULD WE BAN UNPAID INTERNSHIPS?’ This article is written by Talia Klein Perez, a digital marketing lecturer at Sapir College; It is fair article as it gives breath to both perspectives. Her reasons in favour of having unpaid internships: - It is just a part of capitalism as interns provide the free labour and in return, they learn necessary skills such as communication and actual job experience, which will make them more attractive to their employer. - It is another form of an interview process. - Companies will just hire unpaid interns “underground” which would be more harmful as they would be unregulated and unsupervised. In favour against unpaid internships: - Interns do not have any job security so when their contract is up, they can be left jobless. This evidence is provided in the article by the National Association of Colleges and Employers

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(NACE). According to them 63% of “paid interns receive at least one job offer, but only 37% of unpaid interns and 35% of those who didn’t work as interns at all were hired”. - The interns have lower loyalty to the company as they feel as though their work is “unimportant because they aren’t paid”. - Interns are only used for grunt labour work such as getting coffee, printing, and binding documents. To back up her statements, she provides links to reputable newspaper establishments such as Business Insider and the Guardian as well as reports from college education departments such as the NACE. In her conclusion, she suggests that payment can come in more forms than just money. In the end, the article provides arguments for both sides and does not give a recommendation on what should occur and instead leaves it to the viewer to make their own decision based on the arguments.

Why We Should Not Outlaw “Unpaid” Internships This collaborative article, written by Jennifer Schneible and Abigail R. Hall explains why unpaid internships should be legal. Abigail R. Hall is an Assistant Professor of Economics while Jennifer Schneible is a freshman allied health science major at the University of Tampa. This helps the article to be reliable as it is produced by reputable educators. The article is published in Inside Sources, a trusted source of news that aims to provide “a deeper look at the serious stories affecting our country and our world”. Some points that both Hall and Schneible makes about the unpaid internships is that if all unpaid internships were banned, roughly 500,000 to 1million people annually would not be employed according to their source ‘The Atlantic’. They also provide examples in circumstances if it was banned such as a company having to split wages to keep one unpaid intern and one paid intern. Finally, they argue that interns “benefit significantly from their experiences even if unpaid” so therefore it should not be banned. Looking through this article, they do provide many resources, however it fails to be balanced as does not focus on being balanced. The authors does not make any attempt in arguing for those against unpaid internships as they fail to provide as many evidence in favour of it.

My Opinion and Viewpoint In my opinion, I believe that unpaid internships should not be banned as they provide a lot of necessary skills needed in the industry. However, for companies generating over 100mil, I believe that they should be able to provide paid internships while those under 10mil should not need to because they are more of an industry entry level, preparing interns for working in a bigger company. This helps undergraduates such as myself pay for daily transport to work and food, helping boost the economy macaronically. I also consider those people who are older and studying who need to find an internships to graduate from their degree. If these people have children or are renting, they cannot afford to work 6 months at a time without any compensation.

Evaluation of Opinion and what would change my mind My opinion is based on my experience working at an unpaid internship for 6 months in 2019. All the points that the first article made about not feeling like interns were not doing any worthwhile work was something I felt. I also experience doing menial tasks such as binding and paper works and so I felt unappreciated. However, where I differ is the fact that I was fortunate enough to receive a job offer after my internship as I proved my worth to the company and my supervisor. My mind could be change if someone could explain to me in a reasonable manner why my opinion could not work.

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Reflection on Feedback The feedback I received after my presentation was very helpful as it provided me with information to prepare for this assignment. It showed that my topic was not very quantitively influenced and that I needed to attack the question from a different angle. This help form my topic from lwhether internships are legal’ to ‘should internships be banned’. The feedback also showed that I needed new articles as I could not provide any in the presentation as well as adding some more stakeholders.

Conclusion In conclusion, I feel that unpaid internships should be paid if the market cap of the company is substantial while those that are lower should not have to pay but instead be taught skills to help them in the future for graduate roles. Though Australia could benefit from this opinion, I feel as though it will be a while before it could be implemented as the ‘Fair Work Ombudsman’ needs to change their ruling on what is considered to be an unpaid intern.

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References Perez, T. (2018). Should we Ban Unpaid Internships?. Retrieved 11 February 2021, from https://www.theperspective.com/debates/living/ban-unpaid-internships/ Schneible, J., & Hall, A. (2016). Why We Should Not Outlaw “Unpaid” Internships – InsideSources. Retrieved 11 February 2021, from https://insidesources.com/why-we-should-not-outlaw-unpaidinternships/ Thompson, D. (2012). Work Is Work: Why Free Internships Are Immoral. Retrieved 11 February 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/work-is-work-why-free-internshipsare-immoral/257130/ Unpaid internships could be banned. (2016). Retrieved 11 February 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37823791 Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website. (2021). Retrieved 11 February 2021, from https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/unpaid-work/work-experience-and-internships

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