Thomas Lyttelton has recently put up a blog defending the use of unpaid internships by the ‘charity’ sector, including the Young Foundation.
Lyttelton basic argument is that:
1. With regards to whether unpaid internships can be perceived as exploitative, there is a distinction between their use by the private sector and the ‘charity’ sector.
2. The focus on the unpaid nature of many internships distracts us from the real issue: interns are largely made up of white, middle-class graduates from top universities, and there needs to be a wider representation to include people from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds.
For Lyttelton, “Volunteers have long been a part of how charities function, and so things are less clear cut than for the private sector.” This is a deliberate attempt to portray what is supposed to be ‘professional’ work as a form of volunteering. In most cases, interns wouldn’t describe themselves as volunteers, especially if they work for a think tank. They would describe volunteering as helping a local charity or fundraising in their spare time, not as a contract of work (which is what internships are). For most interns, internships are an attempt to build experience in a professional career they may be interested in pursuing. In many cases they are compelled to accept unsalaried work for lack of other opportunities. The idea that an unpaid internship is a form of volunteering is rubbish – as the Low Pay Commission has repeatedly argued, internships should be subject to national minimum wage laws, and this should be enforced more effectively.
It’s shocking to hear Lyttelton argue that “third sector internships entrench privilege and do nothing to promote social mobility” while defending unpaid internships that… entrench privilege and do nothing to promote social mobility. When work is unpaid, it automatically rules out applications or interest from many of those that are from disadvantaged or ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds, or who can’t afford to work for free. Thus, the fairness of recruitment processes (which Lyttleton rightly argues favour those from advantaged backgrounds) is irrelevant. The Young Foundation’s solution of strengthening social mobility by recruiting from a wider range of backgrounds is useless: poorer people are not going to work for free. They can employ as much positive discrimination as they want, but very few people that aren’t privileged enough to be able to afford unpaid internships will be receptive to the idea. The “entrenched privilege” and lack of social mobility will continue.
If the Young Foundation and other organisations that use unpaid interns would like to tackle “entrenched privilege” and strengthen social mobility, they could start by paying their interns.
But they may argue that financially, they’re constrained. If that’s the case, the following could be a solution. For a few months at a time, paid senior professionals within these think tanks should designate 12-15% of their work time as “volunteering”, rather than paid work. The money they would have made from the hours worked can be invested into the communities they’re supposed to be helping, or can go towards paying interns a salary. If Lyttleton and the Young Foundation are serious about the idea that “volunteering” has long been a part of the charity sector, and that the issue is “less clear cut than the private sector”, they should have no problems with this. Or is it one rule for the ‘professionals’, and another for struggling young people?
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" And I think it's possible to imagine an internship that could justify not paying by being solely these things [e.g. training, experience, networking etc. ]"
I think by this point it wld no longer be an internship as it is currently understood, but rather fit into the realm of work experience or training-> the words we use to describe things are important.
At the moment, internships are by and large unpaid work placements. In this country, if you are carrying out set task, at set hours, you are, for the purposes of British Law, carrying out activities covered by minimum wage regulations, although legally this is different for charities.
It is disingenuous to say that if unpaid internships were made to become free training, then that would be ok. If Big Macs were made with organic sirloin steak, sun-ripened tomatoes and homegrown lettuce they would taste far far better.... but they would also no longer be Big Macs.
I have received great training by interning for charities... and I have also been a free administrator and data monkey. I could only do both these things as I was living with my parents, being stipended by my university and working as an English teacher.
You cannot, however, forget that for many people this is just not a possibility: outreach is always fighting a loosing battle. People need to eat, and that almost always means they need to be paid.
Paid internships are an incredibly emotive issue because for many, unpaid internships just represent one of the many barriers set up on their way to success, and which reiterate that the kind of jobs they want to do are not for 'the likes of them'.
Gaia and Atif,
I'm not sure I agree with you that it's necessary to win the argument about paying interns before having a debate about access or quality. Third sector employers tend to justify unpaid internships by pointing to everything the intern gets from the internship: training, experience, networking etc. And I think it's possible to imagine an internship that could justify not paying by being solely these things. The Young Foundation runs a great project, called Uprising, which mentors talented young people from diverse backgrounds, and I think you could run an internship on similar lines.
Obviously, internships are almost never like this, but I think challenging charities to go in this direction is win-win. If they do, then the internships might go some way to redressing the fact that the third sector, particularly the research end of it, is not very diverse. But if they don't, then it exposes their hollow rhetoric, reinforces the fact that charities are exploiting free labour, and it makes it harder in the long run for charities to justify not paying interns.
Hi Tom,
1. You get into tricky ground on this: the private sector is generally very good at the training schemes that you suggest the third sector should be carrying out.
Further we should *stop* using the volunteering argument as regards the charity sector- volunteers volunteer when they can and when they want.
Paid staff turn up at specific times to carry out specific tasks.
An internship, to be unpaid, is *supposed* to be merely shadowing. Semantics will only overshadow the real issue.
2. The debate is only *currently* about paid internships. If you look at the organisations at the centre - for example Internocracy and Internaware - the debate has more generally been about the *quality* of internships.
Also, I think that if we are looking at "broader social purpose" I think you cannot address this 'social purpose' without looking at how on earth you attract different audiences without addressing the fact that without parental support, a vast majority of people cannot afford to be without pay for three months at a pop.
If, at the very least, you could claim JSA whilst doing an internships we'd be getting somewhere, but the 'pay issue' is fundamental because of the emotive weight it carries: without some kind of remuneration, internships will continue to be a "not for people like me" issue.
Great article, thanks for that.
Hi Tom, thanks for the response. The following reasons are why I
believe your blog post presented a very subtle defence of unpaid
internships:
1) The following excerpt: "Volunteers have long
been a part of how charities function, and so things are less clear cut
than for the private sector." Here you give the impression (however
subtle) that it may be suggested that interns could be considered
"volunteers" in a non-profit organisation - hence the issue of unpaid
interns "is less clear cut than for the private sector". I believe the
issue is very clear-cut: interns are employees under contract, not
volunteers.
2) The Young Foundation employs unpaid interns. You
mention that the debate you are proposing - about recruiting interns
from non-traditional backgrounds and how this can be achieved - is
actively being explored in the Young Foundation. But I have to question
whether this goes beyond social mobility in an unpaid intern context,
given that the Young Foundation's official policy is that interns are
not paid.
3) One of the central points of your article is your
suggestion that the debate about internships is too limited, focused
around a single issue - whether interns are paid or not. This devalues
the significance of the issue: the debate should most definitely be
focused on whether interns are paid or not; far too many organisations
still hire unpaid interns, and this in many people's eyes equates to
exploitation. This is why I argued that we can't begin to consider
issues of social mobility and recruiting from non-traditional
backgrounds in internship programmes until the core issue of the
exploitative nature of most internships is addressed.
I hope my
post isn't perceived as a blanket attack on the Young Foundation. Your
organisation does terrific work, as do others that employ unpaid
interns. But I think it's about time the not-for-profit sector moves
beyond the use of unpaid interns - especially if they want to use their
internships for a broader social purpose.