Unpaid work has become increasingly normalized over the past few years. Internships are seen as valuable opportunities that offer a way for workers — especially younger ones — to break into many different industries. But they are also insecure, lacking in oversight and potentially exploitative. Where should we draw the line on unpaid internships? A forum in Vancouver next week will address that question and look at the ways in which organizations can help advocate for fair working conditions.
Confronting Internships: A Forum on Reforming Unpaid Work is a celebration to launch a special issue of the Journal tripleC called Interrogating Internships: Unpaid Work, Creative Industries, and Higher Education. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, November 4 from 7 to 9pm at the SFU Centre for Dialogue (580 West Hastings St.).
Enda Brophy, Assistant Professor with SFU’s School of Communication, is one of the event’s organizers. He says that, unlike Ontario, western Canada hasn’t yet seen much public debate around the politics of internships.
“In organizing this forum we are aiming to bring attention to this urgent topic, but also to begin a conversation on how the internship system can best be transformed to suit the needs of the countless young people for whom it has become a necessary (and often exploitative) stepping stone to accessing their jobs of choice,” he told Story Board this week via email.
Forum speakers will include John Arthur (board member of the Canadian Intern Association), Eric Glatt (a founding member of Intern Labor Rights in the United States), and Iain Reeve (an organizer at the Generation Squeeze campaign, a project lobbying for more stable living and working conditions for young Canadians).
