youth and work

Liberals Commit to (Partial) Ban on Unpaid Internships

2017-03-22T19:17:00.000-04:00

I don't blog much anymore (that may change at some point), but I thought that a short post on today's Federal budget was in order. Essentially, the Trudeau government has largely adopted, if implemented that is, the position of Canadian Intern Association and myself, which have repeatedly called for a prohibition on unpaid internships within Federally-regulated organizations (i.e. banks, interprovincial transportation, and telecommunications). The proposal contained in the 2017 budget calls (see page 64) for a ban on non-academic unpaid internships and regulation of academic unpaid internships. This would be a significant step forward as the Canada Labour Code is largely silent on unpaid internships, which are one of the most exploitative forms of labour currently targeting young Canadians in the labour market. Once I have more information I will post an update.

And Now a Word About Experiential Education

2016-06-27T09:33:00.002-04:00

There have been a couple minor developments in relation to experiential education in Ontario that I thought were worthy of a blog post. This post is going to briefly overview both developments and give some analysis on what's occurring.

So exactly what is experiential education? Well, it's a buzzword these days at universities and colleges, but at the core experiential education or work-integrated learning is essentially the myriad of options available to secondary and post-secondary institutions to include various types of course offering that place students into workplaces or environments where practical skills can be utilized directly. Examples would be co-op programs, practicums (think social work or nursing), internships, or field work in the form of an archaeological dig - the offerings can be quite diverse.

The first development was the Business-Higher Education Roundtable, which is a offshoot of the Business Council of Canada, putting forward the idea that every university and college student should be participating in a co-op program, internship, or other form of work-integrated learning as part of their degree or diploma programs. The Business-Higher Education Roundtable's "plan" can be viewed here, but all it's essentially a glorified press release. I was on the CBC's The Current to discuss the plan, which you can listen to here or read the transcript.

The second development was from the Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel, which was set up by the Province of Ontario in 2015 to examine workforce transformation amid a period of rapid technological change. The Panel released its report to the Premier last Thursday. The report focused on six key areas: local partnerships; labour market information; experiential learning; promoting multiple career pathways; human capital investment; and, developing skills.

The aspect of the Panel's report that interests me is the recommendations around experiential education, which boil down to the following points: (1) expand specialist programs at the secondary level so that more high school students engage in work-integrated learning; (2) expand work-integrated learning at both the secondary and post-secondary level so that every student has engaged in experiential education by the end of post-secondary education; (3) develop a modernized apprenticeship system to integrate more young people into the skilled trades; (4) require businesses that receive funding through the Jobs and Prosperity Funds to provide experiential education opportunities; (5) encourage post-secondary institutions to provide longer co-op placements in the range of eight to twelve months; and, (6) ensure adult learners and mature students have access to experiential learning opportunities.

Both the plan from the Roundtable and the report from the Panel contain some interesting and even useful ideas for discussion. Certainly the Panel's report is more comprehensive in its recommendations, but where both the plan and report fall down is in providing specifics about how to achieve the goals laid out in each document. More troubling is that neither the Roundtable, nor the Panel acknowledge the deep structural problems that plague work-integrated learning in Ontario from the gendered regulatory environment that benefits young males to the utter absence of any employment standards protections for students to the lack of funding for high-quality experiential learning to the downloading of risk and training costs from corporations onto young workers.

The plan and the report are sophomoric efforts by individuals who don't fully understand the complexity of the problems they're attempting to address, to say nothing about the the fact that both documents reflect an extremely narrow, neoliberal, and corporatist interpretation of what secondary and post-secondary education should be and offer. Absent from both the Panel and Roundtable are the actual voices of young workers or students - this points to dual problems relating to legitimacy and intergenerational equity in that neither body could be bothered with engaging in adequate consultations with the very persons that will be impacted by any possible policy change.

I would give both the plan and the report more attention if I thought either set of recommendations had a chance of going anywhere, but with the current budget pressures there simply is no chance that universities or colleges are going to receive the necessary funding to expand work-integrated learning in Ontario. Certainly there needs to be a sea-change as to how Ontario (and Canada for that matter) approaches workforce development (just watch the documentary below for a primer), but neither of the documents reviewed here provides a logical way forward. For more of my writing on work-integrated learning and experiential education, see: here; here; here; and, here.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

2015-12-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

I've been really busy with a new project and haven't had a lot of time to blog in the past few months. Hopefully in the new year I'll get back to posting regular pieces. One thing that I wanted to highlight is a trial balloon today from Ryerson University about creating a third law school in Toronto. This has been rumoured for a couple years, but nothing has surfaced until now. Hopefully, the idea gets shot down quickly as it's a supremely terrible idea. Ryerson University already has the Law Practice Program, which is an unfolding testament to the horrific labour market outcomes that young law graduates are currently facing as the vast majority of LPP positions pay under the minimum wage. There's just no need to feed another one-hundred to two-hundred highly-indebted graduates into an already saturated system with scant job prospects. The people behind this idea are either utterly tone-deaf or predatory; if one wants to rob young folks (and their parents) of hard-earned money then go buy a pistol and balaclava, there's no need to go to the expense and hassle of creating a law school to do it. I've written about this topic many times before in great detail, see: here; here; here; here; and, here.

Internships, Youth Unemployment, and the 2015 Federal Election: An Analysis of the Parties' Positions

2015-10-08T08:46:00.001-04:00

This post originally appeared on the Canadian Intern Association website, but it's my analysis and I felt that my readers would appreciate reading it. A French version of the analysis can be found here. Additionally, I should be posting a couple more pieces related to the Federal election in the coming week in advance of October 19th.

The Canadian Intern Association is a not-for-profit organization that advocates for the workplace rights of interns and young workers. In advance of the October 19, 2015 general election, we developed a questionnaire around issues related to unpaid internships, law reform to the federal labour code, and active labour market programs to support youth employment. We received responses from all of the major political parties with the exception of the Conservative Party of Canada. An analysis of the parties’ responses is provided below and the entirety of the actual responses is available for download here. The analysis is divided between the national parties and parties predominately running candidates in Quebec.

As a strictly non-partisan organization, we have engaged directly with the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada (“the LPC”), the New Democratic Party (“the NDP”), and the Conservative Party of Canada (“the CPC”) over the past three years to promote greater workplace protections for interns. The analysis here is solely based on the responses we received from the parties. No other sources we consulted. Andrew Langille, the Canadian Intern Association’s General Counsel, who does not hold membership in any political party, prepared the analysis.

The Canadian Intern Association urges everyone to engage in the political process surrounding the Federal election. Information about registering to vote can be obtained from the Elections Canada website or by calling 1-866-463-6868. If you have specific questions arising out of our analysis we encourage you to speak directly with candidates in your riding to understand their positions and make an informed choice. The election in on October 19, 2015, and there will be advance polls taking place in the next week. We strongly encourage everyone to vote.

Overall Evaluation:

The Canadian Intern Association is certainly heartened by the responses received from all the parties. The responses from the LPC and NDP show that both parties take the issue of unpaid labour in the youth labour market seriously and that serious thought has gone into preparing their positions, that being said we remain concerned that both parties have not provided clear answers about possible policy responses and are simply parroting their platforms. How parties deal with unpaid internships can be viewed as a barometer as to how wider labour market regulation vis-à-vis youth would be approached and in this regard more detail would have been appreciated.

Out of the other parties the Bloc Québécois (“BQ”) and the Green Party of Canada (“GPC”) both offer advance the notion that young people should not be working for free. The position of both parties is welcome as they acknowledge the myriad difficulties that young workers are facing in the labour market. We must, however, remain cognizant that neither party is in a position to form the government or opposition.

Finally, we are deeply concerned about the CPC’s lack of response to our questionnaire. Internships, paid or unpaid, forms a growing segment of the jobs available in the youth labour market, particularly in industries that require post-secondary education. It is no secret the CPC has largely ignored the concerns of young Canadians over the last decade and their silence on this issue speaks volumes. We strongly encourage everyone to examine the CPC’s record both on youth labour market issues and public policy directed at youth when deciding on who to vote for.

National Parties:

These are the response of the national parties, namely the GPC, LPC, and NDP. As previously noted, the CPC did not provide a response to our questionnaire.

Workplace Protections under the Canada Labour Code

1. If elected, will your party amend the Canada Labour Code (“the CLC”) to ensure that federally regulated employers pay all interns who are not performing work as a requirement of their secondary or post-secondary educational program?

The LPC in their response, which combined questions one and two, make a number of general comments, but do not commit to specific measures with respect to changes to the CLC. The LPC response suggests that “[e]stablishing clear standards around internships will help safeguard legitimate opportunities for young workers while protecting them from exploitation.”

In their response the GPC states that, if elected, they would amend the CLC to ensure that federally regulated employers pay their interns. Additionally, the GPC states that they would work through the Council of Canada Governments, essentially an inter-governmental body with representation from the provinces and territories, to develop a comprehensive strategy to “ensure all working Canadians are fairly compensated.”

The NDP response states that the party is committed to “cracking down on the use of unpaid internships.” The NDP further states that they would extend full health and safety protections to interns under the CLC, and would “limit the scope of internships in a manner that would shift most positions to paid employment.” The response does not clarify how this shift would be accomplished, but it is a plausible, albeit somewhat difficult, policy objective to achieve.

2. If elected, what measures will your party take to introduce greater protections and oversight for interns performing work for federally regulated employers as a requirement of their secondary or post-secondary educational program? Please be specific.

The NDP’s response is interesting, but does not address the student aspect head-on. They repeat the line about extending health and safety protections, and then provide various examples of areas when interns should receive protections. The response then goes on to discuss two-tiered compensation schemes for younger workers, which is not directly applicable to student interns. Finally, the NDP commits to re-opening the CLC in a “tripartite manner” to ensure that young workers get a fair deal; it is unclear what is meant by that statement.

The LPC makes no commitments to introducing greater protections under the CLC for students undertaking internships with federally regulated employers. The GPC states that they “believe that [students] should be fairly compensated for their contributions to the workplace.” The GPC suggests that paid, rather than unpaid internships, should be promoted. The GPC also commits to increase workplace inspections and enact stronger deterrent to “illegal unpaid overtime work.”

Data Collection

3. Statistics Canada does not record data on the number of unpaid internships in Canada, although estimates place the number at between 100,000 and 300,000 annually. If elected, will your party ensure Statistics Canada tracks the prevalence of unpaid internships in Canada’s labour market?

The GPC would require all employers to report the number and duration of unpaid internships to Statistics Canada.The NDP commits to reinstating the long-form census and also indicates that it would expect Statistics Canada to include questions about unpaid internships in its surveys.

The LPC provides the most in-depth response and reference how labour market information is critical to making informed public policy decisions. The LPC would: make Statistics Canada fully independent; collect more detailed labour market information; and, would immediately restore the long-form census.

Supporting Youth in the School-to-Labour Market Transition

4. If elected, what investments will your party make to promote summer employment for college and university students? Please be specific.

The GPC proposes a three measures: support for integrated education and co-op programs; restoring funding for and expanding the Federal student summer job program; and, implementing a guaranteed liveable income, essentially some form of basic income, so students can meet the necessities of live.

The NDP succinctly states that they will continue to support programs like the Youth Employment Strategy and the Federal Student Work Experience Program. The LPC response does not provide specifics and really only states that an LPC government would invest in young Canadians.

5. If elected, what investments will your party make to support recent college and university graduates in the school-to-labour market transitions? Please be specific.

The LPC essentially repeats their youth jobs policy plank from the platform, which has various pieces to it. In a nutshell, the LPC state that they would do the following: (1) overall investment of $1.3 billion over three years; (2) would increase the number of jobs funded by the Canada Summer Jobs program; (3) would double the number of spots in the Skills Link program; (4) create 5,000 youth “green” jobs via increased hiring at Parks Canada; (5) reinstate the Youth Service Program and fund it at $25 million per year; and, (6) enacting changes to Employment Insurance (“EI”) by eliminating EI premiums for employers for full-time employees aged 18 to 24 for the first twelve months of their employment, and ending the nine-hundred and ten (910) qualifying bar for young workers to obtain EI benefits, which is a serious impediment for young workers to qualify for EI.

The NDP’s response conveys three main points: (1) the NDP would commit $100 million annually to funds, in partnership with private and non-profit organizations, to help young Canadians obtain employment; (2) a commitment to offer opportunities at Parks Canada; and, (3) raise the Federal minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.

The GPC response centres around tuition fees, which they commit to abolish for post-secondary education and skills training by 2020; additionally, the GPC would eliminate Federal student debt above $10,000.00, abolish charging interest, and increase funding for bursaries. The GPC proposals are largely unrealistic due to the Federal division of powers under the Constitution and the provinces retaining overall jurisdiction for education in Canada.

6. If elected, what investments will your party make to promote apprenticeships and skills development in the trades? Please be specific.

The GPC references the non-existent skills shortage in their response to this question. That error aside, the GPC commits to the following: boosting access to apprenticeship programs in key trades; provide financial supports to tradespersons to support taking on apprentices; expand industry-based job training; and, develop a Youth Community and Environment Service Corps to provide 40,000 jobs to young people per year for four years.

The NDP proposes two measures: all federal infrastructure projects with budgets over $10 million would have a requirement that the project must hire apprentices; and, provide funding for municipalities and Indigenous governments to create 1,250 youth apprenticeships.

The LPC response to this question repeats their policy plank in the platform relating to skills development. The LPC makes the following commitments: (1) a $500 million annual increase to Labour Market Development Agreements, which are agreements with the provinces to provide skills training and active labour market programs; (2) a $200 million increase in funding to increase training for workers who cannot currently access federal skills training; (3) implementing an appropriate apprenticeship ratio for federal infrastructure projects; (4) expanding funding for Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Strategy; and, (5) investing $25 million in training facilities in conjunction with labour unions.

Quebec Parties:

These are the response of the parties predominately running candidates in Quebec, namely the BQ and Forces et Démocratie (“F&D”).

Workplace Protections under the Canada Labour Code

The BQ succinctly states that it would work to reform the CLC to ensure that all interns falling under federally regulation, except those working for a non-profit, are remunerated. The F&D commits to amending the CLC to put in place protections for unpaid interns and ensure that tools are in place to ensure that internships meet certain criteria.

The BQ state that they consider academic unpaid internship for secondary or post-secondary educational programs to be completely unfair and state that interns should be paid. F&D would examine, but does not commit to, integrating protections against abuse and for occupational health and safety.

Data Collection

The F&D states that it would reinstate the long-form census, but does not commit to collecting statistics relating to unpaid internships. The BQ states that Statistics Canada should be collecting data relating to unpaid internships.

Supporting Youth in the School-to-Labour Market Transition

4. If elected, what investments will your party make to promote summer employment for college and university students? Please be specific.

The BQ wants an increase of $50 million dollars per year in Federal summer student jobs training programs. F&D does not really propose anything other than assessing whether the current level of Federal investment in the Summer Jobs Program in adequate.

5. If elected, what investments will your party make to support recent college and university graduates in the school-to-labour market transitions? Please be specific.

The BQ wants the creation of a tax-credit to help with the renewal of rural regions by offering graduates economic incentives. The F&D proposes measures that would promote entrepreneurship and a tax-credit for young graduates who accept a job in rural areas.

6. If elected, what investments will your party make to promote apprenticeships and skills development in the trades? Please be specific.

The BQ proposes that the Federal government should stop twinning training programs and provide the money directly to Quebec as a way to increase direct funding of programs. The F&D didn’t propose anything other than consultations with regional leaders to assess demands for apprentices and professionals.

Why Are Ryerson University and Bell Media Advertising a Wage Theft Scam?

2015-09-11T12:03:00.000-04:00

So it seems that Ryerson University has teamed up with Bell Media to advertise a little back to school wage theft at the Toronto International Film Festival. Last week I came into possession of an email advertisement from Mathew Marr, an Assistant to the Director of Productions at Bell Media, who was recruiting “volunteers” to work for ETalk, an entertainment show on CTV, doing promotional activities during TIFF. This falls under a new trend of misclassifying employees as volunteers that is being seen in the labour market, which is a separate issue from the unpaid internship issue. Most notably this trend is very pronounced with the large media organizations like Bell Media, Rogers, and the CBC.

The advertisement succinctly states “[p]lease note his is an unpaid position, but a great opportunity for those interested in getting experience in entertainment television and TIFF. The problem being that what described in the email is anything but a volunteer role. What’s actually described is a public-facing public relations role that’s distributing promotional materials - that’s the “interacting with the public and distributing SWAG” part of the advertisement. Beyond that, the email also asks prospective “volunteers” to provide résumés. All of this seems to indicate that Bell Media advertised an illegal wage theft scam contrary to the provisions of the Canada Labour Code. The fact of the matter is that these students should be receiving the prevailing minimum wage in Ontario, which is $11.00 an hour.

Bell Media, BCE Inc., Bell Media’s parent company, and other divisions within Bell have a long and rich history of engaging in illegal wage theft scams targeting young workers, just recall the closure of the Professional Management Program (remember Henry Mar?), the illegal exploitation of young workers via employee misclassification at Fibe TV1, or the countless unpaid internships offered by television shows falling under the Bell Media banner. There’s a systemic culture of wage theft, exploitation, and ignoring basic labour laws at BCE Inc., which is bizarre considering how hugely profitable the company is.

A lawyer from Hicks Morley, Carolyn McKenna, provided a limited response to questions I posed to Bell Media, stating: “The individuals that will be working with Etalk during the Toronto International Film Festival will indeed be paid. Individuals will receive a commensuration of $25 for each two-hour shift. This was communicated to them last week by e-mail and confirmed in person on Monday. The email of August 21, 2015 miscommunicated this fact.” I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, to judge the plausibility of Ms. McKenna’s explanation. After receiving Ms. McKenna's response, I did learn through other sources that other people had questioned the legality of what Bell Media was doing and the level of remuneration certainly changed due to the attention.

The next question I would ask is why Ryerson University even advertising such positions? Well I have a few ideas on this, most of which relate to the incestuously close connections between the program and the major media companies in Canada. First off, Justin Stockman, Bell Media’s Vice President of Specialty Channels, sits on the RTA School of Media’s advisory council. Second, 12% of the faculty and instructors in the RTA School of Media have direct connections to Bell Media through employment, executive, or consulting roles. Third, there’s an endowed chair bearing the name of Bell. Finally, it should be noted that over the past decade the RTA School of Media has provided Bell Media controlled properties with many unpaid interns every academic year. All these linkages between Ryerson University and Bell Media have created a situation where students act as a reserve unpaid labour force for a corporate behemoth. This is a truly disgusting action for a public university to be taking, given that students occupy an extremely vulnerable, precarious position in Ontario’s labour market.

I’ve repeatedly reached out to Sheldon Levy, the President of Ryerson University, with a series of questions, but have not gotten any responses to my inquiries. If I receive anything I will update the blog post. For more about the sordid state of media internships in Canada take a look at these great resources, see: here; here; here; here; and, here.

Justin Trudeau, Truthiness, and a $15.00/Hour Federal Minimum Wage

2015-08-06T00:27:00.000-04:00

So if you haven’t noticed there’s a Federal election campaign on now. I’m going to writing about it from time-to-time in the lead-up to the vote on October 19. I hope that all of my readers will get involved with local campaigns (try volunteering with the NDP, Liberals, or Green Party) and vote come election day (get registered here). In the interim I intend on writing about how labour market issues, particularly ones involving young people, are being treated by the major parties. One issue that’s getting some attention right out of the gates is the NDP’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.00/hour and the criticism it’s garnering from Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau. That's the topic of this blog post.

To set this all up here's some background: in early July I got into a debate on Twitter with Gerald Butts, the Principal Advisor to Justin Trudeau, and Robert Falcon Ouellette, the Federal Liberal candidate in Winnipeg Centre, around the NDP’s Federal minimum wage proposal. It started when Mr. Ouellette tweeted out a graphic critiquing the NDP’s minimum wage proposal (check it out here). The graphic suggested that only a small-fraction of workers in Canada would benefit from setting the federal minimum wage at $15.00/hour. The graphic was rather misleading and a prolonged debate ensued around the merits of the Mr. Ouellette’s sophomoric critique of the NDP’s proposal.

A History Lesson

At this juncture, a history lesson is in order to give some important context to the discussion. The regulation of employment in Canada is typically a provincial responsibility due to the wording of the Constitution Act, 1867, which extended powers over the regulation of property and civil rights to the provinces. The Federal government did receive the ability to regulate employment in areas directly relating to its jurisdiction, such as shipping, telecommunications, railways, and banking. The Canada Labour Code regulates employment at Federally-regulated employers. Every province and territory sets its own minimum wage, which range between $10.20 (Alberta) to $12.50 (Northwest Territories).

There is no Federal minimum wage in Canada at present. The Liberal government of Jean Chrétien eliminated it in 1996 and simply applied the various provincial minimum wages to Federally-regulated employers. I’m not going to get into the merits of that decision aside from saying that it was made in the context of a wider neoliberal re-regulation of Canada’s labour market towards “flexibility”, which saw negative changes made to unemployment insurance and social welfare programs, a push towards using low-waged migrant workers, a retrenchment of Federal involvement in active labour market programs, and a failure to update workplace laws respond to emerging labour market trends. Most of the foregoing has also been adopted as official policy by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. This goes without saying, but the last twenty years hasn’t exactly been kind to working people in Canada and the origins of a lot of our current labour market problems (i.e. precarious work, stagnating wages, youth un(der)employment, deindustrialization of South-Western Ontario) can be directly traced back to policy decisions made during the Chrétien era.

What Did Trudeau Say and Was it Accurate?

I was a tad baffled about what Mr. Butts and Mr. Ouellette were saying on Twitter, but I’m baffled by a lot of things and simply moved on. That’s where things stood for a month until the Liberals’ campaign launch this past Sunday when Justin Trudeau took a swipe at the NDP’s minimum wage proposal. He stated: “the NDP will talk about raising the minimum wage. What they won’t tell you is that their plan won’t help 99% of the people who make the minimum wage in this country. It won’t help the people I met serving in restaurants, working behind motel reception desks, in parking lots and checkout counters. Tom Mulcair’s plan won’t give them a dime, because it only applies to minimum wage workers who are regulated by the federal government. NDP candidates won’t tell you that. They’re peddling false hope to hard-working people. They’ll say they will help. But they won’t. And Mr. Mulcair knows it.” Strong words, but is his statement accurate?

Well, Trudeau’s comments are a wee bit truthy. The fact of the matter is that the NDP’s proposal will increase the minimum wage across any number of industries and exert wider upward pressure on wages across the country. When the NDP originally rolled out the plan I had a number of reservations and frankly my knee-jerk response was deep skepticism, so I dug into the data and discovered some interesting things. The figures that Mr. Ouellette, Mr. Butts, and Mr. Trudeau seem to be relying on don’t provide an accurate picture. The graphic referenced above uses two figures: “577” and “418” (which is actually erroneous as 416 is the actual figure), which were the figures of the total number of federally-regulated employees earning at or below the minimum wage. These figures are derived from the 2004 and 2008 iterations of the Federal Jurisdiction Workplace Survey conducted by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.

If you parse out the rest of the data in the 2008 Federal Jurisdiction Workplace Survey, which is the latest data we have, certain things become apparent. First, fully five percent (5%) of the federally-regulated employees were earning below $12.50 in 2008, just prior to the Financial Crisis and subsequent crash. Second, another thirty percent (30%) of federally-regulated employees were earning between $12.50 and $19.99. If you take an even distribution of wages between $12.50 and $19.99 you’re left with ten percent (10%) of federally-regulated employees earning between $12.50 and $15.00, if you combine that figure with the five percent (5%) earning below $12.50 you’re left with fully fifteen percent (15%) of federally-regulated workers earning below $15.00. In 2008 there were approximately 820,000 federally-regulated employees in Canada, so if the NDP’s $15.00/hour federal minimum wage proposal impacted fifteen percent (15%) then approximately 123,000 workers would directly benefit from these higher wages (it could be more or could be less, but this gives us a rough idea as to dimensions).

Considering that wages have gone up a bit since 2008 and there is an argument that this data is stale, but it’s the best we have at the moment. In the Twitter debate I pointed out the stupidity of arguing over numbers given the utter lack of solid, recent data pertaining to low-waged, federally-regulated employees. Even if wages have gone up slightly there are any number of practices that are depressing wages such as employee misclassification, outsourcing work, the use of temporary workers, and union-busting. What’s clear to me is that Mr. Trudeau has launched an irrational attack on a meaningful anti-poverty measure using faulty logic and based a profound misreading of the underlying labour market data. Even if implementing a $15.00/hour federal minimum wage only helps 123,000 workers it doesn’t mean it’s a flawed, rather it’s a meaningful step in the right direction towards combating precarious employment. Across Canada, approximately 4,217,879 workers earn below $15.00/hour, so the NDP’s federal minimum wage proposal could potentially be helping close to three percent (3%) of Canada’s low-waged workers.

The Pearson Airport Example

Let’s use the example from Toronto and how a $15.00/hour federal minimum wage could help workers in my neck of the woods. One of the biggest employment hubs in the Greater Toronto Area is Pearson Airport. Over 40,000 people work at Pearson Airport and the many of these workers are employed by federally-regulated employers. Countless security guards, baggage-handlers, screeners, fuel workers, and other service-sector workers are employed at Pearson Airport in precarious jobs. The trend at airports currently is towards rollbacks on compensation and outsourcing. Consider what’s happening to fuel workers who are facing a drop in wages from $24.00 to $14.00 due to contract flipping or new hires at Air Canada working in customer service who only start at $14.00; both sets of workers would immensely benefit from a $15.00/hour minimum wage. It seems odd that Mr. Trudeau is ignoring these workers when he attacks this measure and one wonders if he has any actual ideas of his own to combat the growth in precarious, low-waged work within the federally-regulated sectors of the economy.

Some Concluding Thoughts

I remain baffled by the Liberals’ stance, or lack thereof, on a $15.00/hour federal minimum wage. I've pressed Mr. Butts multiple times for a clear answer on what the Liberals' actual position is, but haven't yet received a response (perhaps he's not ready). Curiously, on September 18, 2014, Liberal MPs voted alongside the NDP and the Green Party in favour of a motion, that was ultimately defeated, requesting that the Conservative government reinstate a federal minimum wage and increase it to $15.00/hour. And now, less than a year later we have Justin Trudeau attacking the NDP for proposing the same measure, why the flip-flopping? This is a sensible measure that would exert upward pressure on wages across the country and keep Canada current with emerging compensation trends in the United States for low-waged workers (i.e. Los Angeles, Seattle, New York State) . Federally-regulated employers are typically very profitable and the low-waged workers working for these companies shouldn't be subjected to arbitrary minimum wage increases.

Going forward I will be keeping my eye on what the Liberals are proposing on the minimum wage file specifically and their labour market policies generally. At this juncture I'm literally dumbfounded by the critique that Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Butts have levelled at the NDP's $15.00/hour federal minimum wage proposal. It's hard to take either of them seriously on labour market policy when neither of them will come clean about what the Liberals' own position is on the issue. Given that the pressures precarious workers are facing this policy would seem to be a no-brainer; additionally, given that income inequality consistently polls high as an issue of concern amongst the electorate I really wonder why we're seeing an irrational stance on minimum wage from Mr. Trudeau. He has never experienced poverty and it might be high time for him to start listening to workers who have.

Precarity, Sexual Harassment, and Low-Waged Work: A Case Comment on Silvera v. Olympia Jewellery Corporation

2015-07-15T02:03:00.000-04:00

I rarely write case comments, but thought that it was warranted for the recent superior court decision in Silvera v. Olympia Jewellery Corporation, 2015 ONSC 3760 (CanLII). It’s a fairly complex decision, so this post is going to run a bit long and be somewhat wonky. It’s an important decision as it’s both legally significant in an employment law and human rights context, and also deals with precarious, low-waged work in a non-unionized environment. This is exactly the sort of case that rarely ends up in a courtroom, but represents what tens of thousands of workers experience everyday in Ontario.

The Facts

Michelle Silvera (“Silvera”) was employed for a period of nineteen months, from August 2008 to March 2010, by Olympia Jewellery Corporation (“Olympia”). She was a receptionist/assistant administrator who was earning around $28,000.00 per year. It started as a temporary position, but turned into a permanent one. Olympia was owned by Raphael Bazik (“Raphael”), but was managed by Morris Bazik (“Morris”). Raphael wasn’t involved in the day-to-day management of the business, while Morris was the Silvera’s direct supervisor. Olympia was a small jewelry manufacturer with approximately ten employees.

There are some important facts to notes with respect to Silvera’s indelible personal characteristics. Silvera is a racialized immigrant who came to Canada as a child. She left home at a young age, had a child in her mid-20s, and was a single mother at the time these events occurred. Her work history was mixed, but was characterized by retail and service sectors jobs, which could easily be characterized as precarious employment.

The Harassment and Termination

Morris started sexually harassing Silvera after about a year of employment. In the fall of 2009 Morris sexually assaulted Silvera by grabbing her breasts. After this first incident Morris started buying her lunch, driving her home, bringing her gifts, and insisting that she wear jewelry that he had given her.

Around Christmas 2009 Morris sexually assaulted her again by grabbing her buttocks. This event occurred when all the other employees were off and Morris had called Silvera into work. The final sexual assault took place on February 19, 2010, when Morris attempted to put his hands down the front of his shirt.

There was also a pattern of behaviour where Morris engaged in anti-Black racism, general racism, and also racism directed at Barack Obama. Morris also had the bad habit of both leaving sexist, racist email on Silvera’s desk, but also of showing her pornography on his computer. This should come as no surprise, but Olympia had no sexual harassment or human rights policies.

Silvera had to have emergency dental surgery on February 23, 2010, which resulted in complications requiring her to be off work until March 8, 2010. Morris was aware of these events, but demanded the contact information for her dental surgeon. Upon her return to work Morris told Silvera that he didn’t believe that she had undergone dental surgery and that she had gone away for the weekend. He required her to get a doctor’s note, which she immediately obtained. On March 12, 2010, Morris told Silvera by phone that her employment had been terminated.

Morris added insult to injury by indicating in the termination letter than Silvera had been away from work for a prolonged period, avoiding contact, and not coming into the office when requested. The judge rejected all of these assertions. Morris caused Silvera further grief by holding up her Employment Insurance claim, which meant she was without any source of income for well over two months.

The Lawsuit and Verdict

The lawsuit is fairly complex. Silvera and her daughter requested damages. With respect to Morris’ conduct Silvera claimed the following: (a) general damages for pain and suffering, including aggravated damages, in the amount of $150,000.00; (b) punitive damages in the amount of $75,000.00; (c) $33,924.75 in damages for loss of earning capacity; (d) costs of future therapy and care in the amount of $42,750.00; and, (e) $40,000.00 in damages for a breach of the Human Rights Code.

Silvera claimed the following against Olympia: (a) $7,475.50 for wrongful dismissal; (b) aggravated damages of $30,000.00; (c) punitive damages of $50,000.00; and, (d) special damages for loss of past income of $57,869.13. Silvera’s daughter also brought a claim under the Family Law Act for $25,000.00.

The verdict was in favour of Silvera; it awarded damages of $206,711.93 to Silvera and $15,000.00 to her daughter under joint and several liability, and also awarded a further $90,344.63 to be paid to Silvera from Olympia. See paragraphs 105 through 179 for a full breakdown of damages.

Legal Analysis

Legally, this case has a lot of interesting things happening in it. I’m going to cover a few of them. You really need to read the entire decision to get a handle of everything.

First, there’s the human rights aspect. The Bill 107 reforms to the Human Rights Code permitted the Courts in Ontario to award human rights damages, but only in cases where there were other causes of actions so as not to preempt the role of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. There haven’t been a large amount of cases making use of the change in law, but that could change, as lawyers get more comfortable with pursuing human rights claims through the Courts.

In this case the judge awarded Silvera $30,000.00 in damages for breaches of her human rights. This figure was arrived at after considering the seminal decision in ADGA Group Consultants Inc. v. Lane, 2008 CanLII 39605 (Div. Ct.). Here are the other cases that I was able to find where human rights claims were argued in the context of employment law: Wilson v. Solis Mexican Foods Inc., 2013 ONSC 5799 (CanLII); Bray v. Canadian College of Massage and Hydrotherapy, 2015 CanLII 3452 (ON SCSM); and, Partridge v. Botony Dental Corporation, 2015 ONSC 343 (CanLII).

Second, another interesting aspect is the punitive damages award of $10,000.00 against Olympia for the manner of her dismissal, which is rooted in the analysis found in the decision of Honda v. Keays, [2008] No. 40 (“Keays”). The Keays damages (here's a backgrounder) appear to have been triggered given that the termination occurred “days after the last (and most serious) incident of sexual assault and battery. What Silvera experienced (i.e. a combination of being sexually harassed and then terminated) is fairly routine and common for women in Ontario’s labour market, so it will be interesting to see how much this case gets utilized in the context of employment law litigation.

Third, the claim under the Family Law Act is relatively rare of employment law litigation. Justice Glustein awarded Silvera’s daughter $15,000.00 in damages for the deterioration and ongoing weakness of their mother-daughter relationship.

Finally, this case alongside O.P.T. v. Presteve Foods Ltd., 2015 HRTO 675 (CanLII), which awarded $150,000.00 for sexual harassment, point to a quickening upward trend for awards arising out of human rights claims. Perhaps it’s the Ghomeshi-effect, but there appears to be a harsher approach developing with how adjudicators are dealing with serious cases of sexual harassment; however, two cases do not make a discernible pattern and this area will have to be monitored for future developments.

Precarious Work in the Context of Employment Law

What I find fascinating about this case is what it says about the labour market of Ontario and how precarious work effectsindividual employees, their families, and the wider community. One of the things that I simultaneously abhor and love about labour law is historical record that left by cases. It’s fascinating to analyze the social, political, and economic trends in play, but it also points to horrible realities that play out as the lived experience of precariously employed individuals in our society – particularly ones who face intersectional oppression and discrimination arising out of their social location and the social context of their employment.

Silvera’s financial dependence on Morris is apparent throughout the decision. She felt powerless to reject or take action over the sexual assaults, his behaviour, or the constant harassment. She put up with everything for months and probably would have continued along without doing anything, but for her termination. Morris certainly understood and took advantage of the enormous power imbalance between him and Silvera. He actually utilized wage theft, unpaid overtime, and after-hours work as means to humiliate Silvera. See, the sad thing is that Silvera felt she couldn’t turn to anyone, not her family or the government, for help – this is a reality that precarious workers face daily: no one is there to help or advocate for them.

Morris isolated her from other employees to carry out the sexual assaults and succeeded in driving a wedge between Silvera and her daughter. The entirety of the events had a terrible on Silvera’s family and permanently damaged her relationship with her daughter. This led to a litany of mental health and addiction issues that precipitated the need for medical intervention. The judge even found it fitting to award damages for future care and therapy, which points to ongoing health complications.

After reading the decision it’s clear that Silvera blamed herself for situation. There’s a thread of disposability that flows through how Morris terrorized Silvera for months. Morris’ predatory behaviour is nothing less than criminal and one wonders why he hasn’t been charged criminally. It’s actually shocking how few cases of workplace sexual assault lead to criminal charges. Police in Canada appear to be ill equipped to address this persistent problem and one wonders why governments across Canada haven’t taken a moreactive role in advancing human rights in the context of the private sphere of employment.

The one thing that resonated with me was this passage: “All she wanted was a “normal workplace” and asked herself “why me?” No doubt many of us wonder why we're subjected to horrible bosses and predatory behaviour. It’s not our fault; rather our economic system prioritizes structural power imbalances over actually protecting the health of individual working citizens. People just want a normal workplace where they earn a decent paycheque and go home at the end of the day, but as we’re seeing this is increasingly a reality for so many of us.

Is Ontario's Ministry of Labour Failing Nail Salon Workers?

2015-05-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

Last week the New York Times ran two excellent pieces called "The Price of Nice Nails" and "Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers", which document the abuse of nail salon workers in the New York City area. The response to the piece has been heartening and yesterday Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the enactment of emergency measures to protect nail salon workers. All of this attention on the plight of nail salon workers got me wondering about labour conditions in Ontario, so I did a little digging and the results aren't terribly encouraging.

The concerns raised in the New York Times piece related to nail salon workers boiled down to concerns around health and safety violations and exposure to chemicals, widespread wage theft and systematic breaches of employment standards, and the exploitation of precariously employed workers. The problems documented in the piece are very similar to what's occurring in the Greater Toronto Area where well over eleven-hundred nail salons operate and the competition is just as competitive as it is south across the border.

Back in 2013 Ontario's Ministry of Labour undertook an inspection blitz targeting employment standards violations in salons, spas, and nail salons. Ninety-two (92) workplaces were inspected with over one-hundred and ninety-five violations (195) discovered. A review of the data from this inspection blitz reveals that seventy-five percent (75%) of the employers were in breach of some part of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("The ESA"). It's not just employment standards violations that are of a concern though, no far from it.

A 2012 piece from Denise Balkissoon in the Globe and Mail detailed the harmful health effects that nail salon workers face from the chemicals used. The Ministry of Labour, in conjunction with the Lung Association, did put out a booklet and pamphlet directed at nail salon workers, but it's unclear if there has been any ongoing efforts to address the occupational health and safety risks that nail salon workers face. The fact that the information only appears in English suggests that neither the Ministry, nor the Lung Association was prepared to engage in outreach efforts targeting immigrant workers who make up a significant portion of the workers in the GTA's nail salons. Also, the booklet and pamphlet doesn't contain any information directed at salon workers around their rights under the ESA.

There are enduring concerns about the ongoing lack of action on the harmful effects of chemicals used in nail salons. Last year the National Network on Environments and Women's Health produced a brochure about toxic chemicals and health impacts (read it in Chinese and Vietnamese). Dr. Victoria Arrandale, a Senior Research Associate at Cancer Care Ontario, states on the hazards that nail salon workers face that "It's a really unique group of workers. They have a lot of chemical exposure. They have musculoskeletal hazards. They in small businesses and there is precarious employment."

It's pretty clear that the social location of many nail salon workers puts them at risk for exploitation. These workers are predominately female, often racialized, and many are recent immigrants. All of these factors make for some challenges when crafting responses to address ongoing violations of labour standards. It's my sense that the Ministry of Labour is simultaneously aware of the ongoing industry-wide problems, but also failing nail salon workers in not crafting an adequate strategy to protect their rights and health.

I've come up with some broad recommendations that could address some of the problems that nail salon workers face in the GTA, these are: implementing adequate regulations over chemicals used in nail salons at the provincial and federal levels (i.e. dibutyl phthalate, toluene, and formaldehyde); the creation of an organization so nail salon workers could advocate for themselves collectively; having the Ministry of Labour conduct ongoing proactive enforcement around employment standards and occupational health and safety; enacting preventative measures to reduce chemical exposure and mandating the use of protective equipment; and, having the Ministry of Labour conduct ongoing outreach and education that is culturally sensitive directed at nail salon workers. I've included an excellent video below that speaks with nail salon workers and experts about the problems in the industry; furthermore, check out this excellent literature review from NNEWH on the various issues facing nail salon workers in Ontario.

The Federal Government Acts to Protect Interns...Maybe

2015-04-22T16:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday in the 2015 Federal budget there was language, in the "Modernizing the Canada Labour Code" section, that suggested that the Federal government would be moving to address the lack of protections for interns under the Canada Labour Code. The vast majority of employers in Canada are regulated by provincial laws, but the Federal government regulates employment in telecommunications, inter-provincial transportations, railways, airlines, and television and radio. There's evidence of a significant intern culture in telecommunications, television, and radio.

The budget stated: "Internships can provide important workplace-based learning experiences and support youth in making a successful transition from school to work. However, many Canadians are concerned about the potential for abuse and lack of protections offered to unpaid interns. This is why Economic Action Plan 2015 also proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code to ensure that interns under federal jurisdiction, regardless of pay, receive occupational health and safety protections and are subject to basic safety standards, and to clarify the circumstances under which unpaid internships can be offered."

While on first blush the aforementioned language sounds encouraging, but the devil is in the details and it appears like the Federal government may be preparing to permit some form of unpaid labour. Depending on the specific reforms that get advanced, this may be a good step forward towards addressing unpaid internships at Federally-regulated employers, but there's also the potential that any reforms could make the situation worse for young workers. It's really impossible to pass judgment without more details.

Federally-regulated employers have bad track record when it comes to exploiting interns. Astral Media (now owned by BCE Inc.) was linked to the harassment and death of Andy Ferguson, a student at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology who was doing a radio internship. Bell Mobility was using hundreds of interns every year in the Professional Management Program, which was shuttered last year after sustained media coverage and lawsuits. Rogers also made use of labour law loopholes to avoid paying young media workers the minimum wage. The question on my mind is why the Federal government would even consider giving hugely profitable companies a new way to avoid meeting basic labour standards, such as limits on hours of work and the minimum wage.

The background to these developments is interesting. NDP MPs, Andrew Cash and Laurin Liu, took the lead in tackling this issue and they both deserve a lot of credit for taking on this issue. Both of them brought forward Bill C-636 which would have strengthened protections for unpaid interns working at Federally-regulated companies. MP Scott Brison, the Liberal's Finance Critic, also has spoken out on the issue of unpaid internships and the deeper impacts on youth unemployment. Finally, unpaid internships attracted the attention of the Standing Committee on Finance last year and heard from a range of stakeholders last year on the topic in the context of a wider examination of youth unemployment. The resulting report, "Youth Employment in Canada: Challenges and Potential Solutions", contained numerous recommendations on internships from the Conservatives, the NDP, and Liberals.

So that's my take on the narrow intern aspect of the 2015 Federal budget. The rest of the budget is really horrific and overall it's terribly regressive with lots of handouts to wealthy boomers. I remarked on Twitter that this budget epitomizes intergenerational fracturing and it really needs to be seen in the lens of the Conservatives bribing older Canadians to vote for them in the upcoming election.

Some Can't Miss Talks at Toronto's Spur Festival This Week

2015-04-07T13:50:00.001-04:00

Just a quick blog post about some of the speakers who are appearing at the upcoming Spur Festival in Toronto later this week.

Guy Standing, a Professor of Development Studies at the University of London, is speaking this Friday at the festival. He's one of the top minds globally on the issues of precarious work and a basic income guarantee. Prior to becoming an academic he was an executive with the International Labour Organization, which roots his work in a real world perspective often absent from much academic research. His work help shape a lot of my initial research into unpaid internships in Canada and he has a lot of sensible policy solutions to address the economic problems Canada is facing. I strongly recommend that anyone remotely interested in labour issues attend his talk; also, I interviewed him awhile back when his seminal book, The Precariat, was first published.

Henry Giroux, the Global Television Network Chair in Communications Studies at McMaster University, is being interviewed by Paul Kennedy on Saturday. Dr. Giroux is one of the top minds in critical pedagogy and a brilliant theorist. He's going to be discussing the politics of disposability, neoliberalism, and the war on young people. I interviewed him two years ago when his book, Youth in Revolt, was published. I highly recommend this talk.

There are some excellent panels happening as well. Deena Ladd, an organizer with Toronto's Workers' Action Centre, along with Colette Murphy, the Executive Director of the Atkinson Foundation, will be discussing precarious work, poverty, and income inequality on Sunday morning. The panel I'm most excited about is the one entitled, "The Future of Work", which features Ross Perlin, the author of Intern Nation, and Bhaskar Sunkara, the publisher of Jacobin magazine (which you should subscribe to). They will be talking about how the nature of work is being fundamentally changed. I highly recommend this panel as it's the one where all the cool kids will be at.

Hope to see some out at these talks! In closing, here's a video of Guy Standing lecturing at Calgary's Parkland Institute last fall about his most recent book, The Precariat Charter.

A Better Deal for Youth? The 2015 Alternative Federal Budget

2015-03-19T01:47:00.000-04:00

The Alternative Federal Budget ("AFB") is being released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. For the second year, Karen Foster and myself have put together the chapter on youth and I thought that it would be good to share what we came up with. There’s a ton of neat, wonky stuff in the AFB, here are the chapters that piqued my interest: child care; employment insurance; tax policy; gender equality; income inequality; post-secondary education; and, retirement security.

The thinking behind the youth chapter was motivated by any number of concerns. First, there’s certainly an understanding that there's a lack of intergenerational equity in all aspects of public policy setting. Second, the labour market post-financial crisis has been especially cruel to young workers in their 20s and 30s with a new normal of un(der)employment and precarious work, but absent any real regulatory or policy shifts. There’s no doubt that economic scarring is occurring and this will present any number of downstream effects which will hurt society for decades to come. Third, on a more optimistic note it’s clear that decisions can be made to implement ameliorative policies that can address the plight that young Canadians find themselves in. Over the past five odd years of thinking about these issues nothing is more apparent to me than the idea that explicit choices led us down the garden path and that only better choices can (partially) reverse and limit the damage that has already be done to this generation.

In terms of specific policies we proposed a range of measures touching on different areas of Federal responsibility. Here’s a snapshot of them:

The creation of a Youth Labour Market Planning Board to move towards more demand-oriented labour market solutions. This body would work with sectoral development councils to ensure that Canada can better meet the workforce and training needs of employers. Another aspect of this body would be to coordinate the collection of better data on training, post-secondary placement rates, job openings, and unpaid internships;
The creation of a workforce renewal fund to assist employers who wish to institute job-sharing programs to support the hiring and training of new workers;
Ensure that young workers receive one-fifth of the jobs on all Federally-funded infrastructure projects;
Institute a new training tax (OMG, a tax) on employers with payrolls greater than $250,000.00. The new tax would penalize employers who to spend less than 1% of the annual payroll on training young employees;
Re-instituting funding for paid internships at not-for-profit organizations. This measure would create twenty-thousand six-month internships every year. In the 1990s the Federal government supported tens of thousands of paid internships, so there’s a history of this type of policy;
Amendments to Part II and Part III of the Canada Labour Code to fully protect students, learners, trainees and interns in the areas of labour standards, occupational health and safety, and workers’ compensation;
The development of proactive labour standards enforcement to address the surge of unpaid internships in Federally-regulated industries (i.e. telecommunications, radio, and television); and,
Review EI to assess what changes are necessary to address what changes are needed to support young workers in the school-to-labour market transition given that prolonged periods of precarious work are now commonplace. This a personal pet peeve of mine I should add. I find it incredible that so few young people are able to collect EI. In 2013, only 18% of young male worker and 8% of young female workers were able to collect EI.

A lot of the other chapters in the AFB contain discussions that are pertinent to young people and their socio-economic concerns, so I highly recommend that you give the entire document a read (or even a skim). If you have any feedback or comments on the chapter or our recommendations please drop me a line as it’s my sincere desire to see more discussions about what can be done to assist young Canadians in turbulent economic times. Finally, here's me discussing precarious work, youth unemployment, and public policies responses at an IPAC symposium last fall.

Precarious work is real: the growing effects of insecure, unstable employment in Canada

2015-03-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

This blog post originally appeared on the Institute for Research on Public Policy's Policy Options blog. It was written as a response to this piece from Tammy Schirle, a WLU economic professor. It's a tad wonkish, but a good primer to some of the great research that has been done on precarious work over the past few years. After the blog post I've included a video of the PEPSO launch from 2013.

Tammy Schirle’s recent piece, “Please define precarious”, presented a narrow picture of the realities of precarious work in Canada and failed to highlight the tremendous research that has been conducted on this issue. I’d like to present a rebuttal of sorts to her analysis.

Leah Vosko, in her seminal text, Precarious Employment: Understanding Labour Market Insecurity in Canada, casts precarious work as “forms of work involving limited social benefits and statutory entitlements, job insecurity, low wages, and high risks of ill health. It is shaped by employment status (i.e. self-employment or wage work), form of employment (i.e. temporary or permanent, part-time or full-time), and dimensions of labour market insecurity as well as social context (such as occupation, industry, and geography), and social location (the interaction between social relations, such as gender and “race” and political and economic conditions).”

As of late there has been increased attention to precarious work from the media, policy makers, and the general public. This is unsurprising given the mounting concerns around middle-class anxiety, surging income and wealth inequality, and slow economic growth post-financial crisis. As an idea, precarious work captures many of the fears Canadians have around the strength of the economy, future job prospects, and the ability to carve out a secure, dignified existence. As a theoretical concept, precarious work is a critical tool to assess and explain the innumerable changes to the labour market over the past three decades.

What I am going to do with this blog post is the following: briefly highlight some of the recent research into precarious work; touch upon the structural changes we’re seeing in Canada’s labour market; and, suggest that Canada needs new public policy and statutory reforms to grapple with the effects of precarious work.

Over the past few years a great deal of excellent scholarship has been completed on precarious work. McMaster University and United Way Toronto collaborated on the PEPSO initiative and released a major report called It’s More Than Poverty, which tracked precarious work and household well-being in the Greater Toronto Area. The Law Commission of Ontario undertook a project examining vulnerable workers and precarious work, which produced multiple reports outlining law reform recommendations to address the decades of regulatory stagnation. The Metclaf Foundation has put out two excellent reports examining the intersection of insecure work and labour market dysfunction: Better Work and Working Better: Creating a High-Performing Labour Market in Ontario.

Some of my favourite books that address precarious work include: Working Without Commitments covers off the health effects arising from precarity;Revolutionizing Retail documents the reality of precarious work in the retail sector and what public policy could do to improve the lives of workers; Intern Nation, an account of the development and effects of intern culture; and, The Precariat, which provides an international perspective on the origins and growth of precarious work.

Over the past two decades Canada’s labour market has been re-regulated to ensure the primacy of flexibility, commodification, and individualism. Our society was restructured along neoliberal lines to reduce the scope of the social welfare state, weaken labour law protections through conscious neglect, and arrest the role of government in addressing the inherent contradictions present in a market-based economy.

Employers increasingly rely on a precarious, temporary, disposable workforce marked by low wages, sharply decreased bargaining power, and insufficient regulatory protections. In essence, an underclass has been created. An underclass who doesn’t receive sufficient wages necessary for a secure existence, is permanently impoverished, and generally cannot access any effective collective representation. Young people, migrant workers, the disabled, women, recent immigrants, and racialized people all face a disparate impact from the rise of precarious work in Canada’s labour market.

Consider a few of the structural trends we’re seeing in the labour market. The use of migrant labour has surged with certain programs, such as the Temporary Foreign Worker Program’s low-skilled stream and the International Experience Canada Visa, which bring in tens of thousands of low-skilled workers into Canada each year. Unpaid internships and unpaid labour has become a significant feature of the labour market with new entrants, such as young workers and recent immigrants, being subjected to widespread, illegal demands from employers to provide their labour for free as a precursor to possible paid employment. We’re also seeing a long-term trend in the growth of part-time and self-employment outstripping full-time job growth. Simply put, workers are being forced into self-employment or lower waged, low-quality employment as a means to survive.

As a society we need to grapple with the effects arising from precarious work, our public policy and laws simply haven’t kept up with the myriad changes that have taken place in the economy and labour markets. Research has borne out that precarious work is an empirical reality that more and more workers are facing. While we’re starting to see some tepid policy responses from government, the steps taken so far do little to address the raft of problems arising from precarious work, such as insecurity, poor health, insufficient incomes, and reduced social cohesion.

Given that workers of all stripes are increasingly vulnerable to financial shocks and the prospect of economic insecurity we need to adapt and renew public policy to account for the changes in the economy. Social welfare programs, such as CPP and EI, need to be updated and bolstered. Labour laws need to be reformed to provide workers with accessible regulatory protections and to provide for meaningful access to collective representation. A guaranteed annual income needs to be given deep consideration as a means to address precarity and insecurity. We also need far better labour market data to understand what’s happening on the ground and as a means to craft appropriate policy responses. In addition, there’s also a need to begin focusing on demand-side active labour market programs and explicit workforce development that links un(der)employed people with training linked to actual, decent jobs.

As a country we desperately need policies that reflect the realities of the 21st century, rather than the 20th. A failure to address the spectrum of precarious work will lead to a further fraying of the social fabric, deeper inequality, and the embedding of insecurity as a permanent lived reality for millions of citizens. We can do better and we must.

Kathleen Wynne on Unpaid Internships

2015-01-20T22:14:00.001-05:00

Just a short post. The Medium, the student newspaper at the University of Toronto - Mississauga, interviewed Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of Ontario, this past week and asked her about unpaid internships. This is probably the clearest comment from her on this subject and reveals the tepid approach that the Ontario Government is taking towards regulating unpaid internships and other forms of precarious, unpaid labour.

The Medium: What is the Liberal government doing to crack down on illegal internships?

Kathleen Wynne: So we have, we have basically banned unpaid internships. There are ways through university courses or college courses that a student may be in a placement that is unpaid, but is part of a course. The broader discussion that we’re having, we’re looking at precarious work, you know, the nature of precarious work and where do we find situations where people in the workplace are vulnerable because of the working conditions, because of the particular arrangements that have been made. Whether that is within the healthcare system or whether it’s within education or whatever sector it is in. So we’re looking generally at how do we make sure that people have, that they are valued for the work that they do.

The flip-side of that is that how do we balance that with the need for people to get work experience and to be able to have placements and to have the opportunity to get the experience they need in order to be able to have the work in the future that they want to have. So that’s another part of the discussion and it was something that was raised with me again on this campus tour, students saying, you know I want the opportunity to get experience I don’t want to be exploited, but I want the opportunity to get experience, so that’s something that we have to take seriously. Experiential learning and the opportunity to have hands-on knowledge of a particular sector is very important and we need to make sure there are enough opportunities for students to get that.

Just a couple quick comments. There's nothing terribly surprising in Wynne's comments, but the second part of the answer is troubling given the number of student deaths linked to experiential learning programs over the last year and a half (Wayne Affleck, Adam Keunen, and Aaron Murray). I don't get the sense that the Premier has a fix to growing problems associated with experiential learning at post-secondary institutions. Also, the Wynne government hasn't exactly banned unpaid internships, it certainly has engaged in limited proactive enforcement, but it hasn't yet reversed the Harris-era loophole (the six-part test) that has allowed countless employers to exploit young workers.

The full video appears below.

Teaching, precarity, and un(der)employment: an interview with Mike Mindzak

2014-11-26T11:58:00.000-05:00

I recently interviewed Mike Mindzak, a Ph.D. candidate at Western, about some research that he's conducting. It turned into an extremely interesting discussion about the state of initial teacher education, un(der)employment among education graduates, public policy, and the state of the labour market in Ontario. I come from a family of teachers, so I'm cognizant of a lot the challenges that the teaching profession faces. For some background to this discussion see some of my previous articles on this topic: here; here; here; here; and, here. The full interview appears directly below.

Q: You're doing research into unemployment and underemployment amongst graduates from Teachers' College, is this a problem in Ontario? What led you study this issue?

A: The issue of teacher un(der)employment in Ontario is extremely concerning and also seems to be growing. For the past decade, the number of new teachers having difficulty securing any type of employment has continued to rise and at this moment, there are likely tens of thousands of teachers in the province who cannot secure adequate work in the profession. With the large over-supply of teachers in the province continuing, the issue of teacher un(der)employment will not be resolved anytime soon.

However, the employment challenges for teachers must also be viewed in relation to the broader labour market dynamics that have unfolded recently, where workers (particularly young workers) across many jobs, professions and occupations have faced growing insecurity, uncertainty and precarity. Indeed, my own foray into graduate studies was partly a result of my own unemployment situation, where as a new teacher in 2009 it became readily apparent that acquiring any sort of teaching position was going to be extremely difficult. This experience lead me to further interrogate my own decision to go into teaching and the growing problems surrounding the current world of work.

Q: What problems are recent graduates from Teachers' College experiencing during the school-to-labour market transition?

A: Your question here is central to my current research—we really do not know what problems un(der)employment teachers are facing in the contemporary labour market. However, we can still identity some of the more general issues facing workers today that might be applicable to teachers. Some of these challenges could include; student debt, part-time work arrangements, inadequate incomes, varied and uncertain schedules, unpaid labour, delayed home ownership, EI, child care, power imbalances at work as well as a lack of training and other benefits provided by employers. In general then, we can understand that un(der)employed teachers appear to embody at least some of the characteristics of precarious workers.

The real challenges for such teachers (which have only been exacerbated by Bill 274) is that they must be engaged in the teacher labour market in order to ensure that they are able to “move up” through the seniority ranks towards full-time employment—while simultaneously must also often be engaged in the general labour market in order to earn a livable income. Thus, at this point, while we now know that there is a substantial over-supply of teachers in the province and a lack of jobs for them, we still really do not know too much about the working-lives of such teachers in Ontario.

Q: I've had a number of friends, who are teachers, leave the province to obtain jobs in Western Canada, Europe, or Asia. Is the labour market for teachers so bad that people have to leave the province to get work? What's contributing to our graduates moving to other jurisdictions?

A: Unfortunately a large number of teachers appear to be leaving the province or country altogether in order to find employment as teachers. The main reason for this is of course is rooted in the lack of available teaching positions in Ontario. While a degree in education (B.Ed) does not exclusively mean you must become a teacher, most students who seek such credentials do expect to go into teaching and are trained to do so in our faculties of education. Most of these graduates would also probably like to teach in Ontario’s public schools, which provide better salaries and stronger benefits. Indeed, another issue regarding teacher un(der)employment is the lack of “good jobs” outside of our public schools. Many private institutions and tutoring companies employ teachers below living wages without benefits and job security. It is therefore not surprising that teachers are choosing to leave to other jurisdictions where working conditions are considerably better.

 We should also remember that teachers moving abroad is a form of “brain drain” as we have invested public dollars into their education and training only for them to leave. In addition, it should be noted that many of these teachers likely plan to return home at some point in the future, where they will once again likely re-enter the already saturated teacher labour market in Ontario. Thus, while they are moving abroad due to their employment situation, we should not view this phenomenon as a means towards alleviating the issue of teacher un(der)employment in Ontario.

Q: Increasingly young teachers are being asked to volunteer in school for months or years prior to being placed on the supply list, does this practice (which is completely illegal) contribute to the increasing precarity that young teachers face? Also, wouldn't this practice limit teachers from historically marginalized groups from being able to enter the teaching profession?

A: The issue of un(der)employed teachers volunteering is definitely problematic for a number of reasons. Indeed, the problems regarding teacher-volunteerism are quite similar to those concerning unpaid internships today. Volunteering requires time and resources, which are not available to all teachers when they have to pay the bills. Moreover, when conceptualized as unpaid labour, volunteering becomes a possible means of replacing paid positions inside of schools. If schools have a need for volunteers, and especially if those volunteers are going to be assisting teachers and helping students—then quite clearly schools could use more employed teachers.

As you point out, these concerns raise a host of issues surrounding equity. If you must volunteer in schools in order to find employment, then only those teachers who can afford to do so stand to benefit. Diversity in the Ontario teacher workforce remains a perennial concern, particularly in recent years when student diversity has grown substantially in many parts of the province. Indeed, for all of the employment challenges I have pointed out so far, the situation tends to be much worse for internationally educated teachers, many of whom are visible minorities. Thus, the issue of teacher-volunteerism only serves as an additional barrier for many teachers seeking employment today.

Q: The Ontario Government have made a number of changes to initial teacher education in Ontario. In your opinion, do these changes address the underlying structural labour market problems that young teachers face? If not, what solutions could be enacted?

A: Beginning September 2015 students must now complete a two-year program (and therefore pay tuition for two years instead of one) in order to receive a bachelor of education (B.Ed) degree. I think this measure can be beneficial in a number of ways; improved teacher training, more time to reflect on pedagogical practice, and space to better understand key theoretical orientations and educational foundations. It should also be noted that many other jurisdictions also have two-year teacher training programs as well. Nevertheless, this change was primarily enacted as a political means to address the un(der)employment crisis—something it is unlikely to achieve. The lack of teaching positions is not only a supply-side issue of too many graduates, but is due to a lack of demand as well. Ontario is facing declining student enrolments in most parts of the province, as well as decreased funding and support for our schools. A lack of demand will only perpetuate teacher un(der)employment regardless of supply-side measures being enacted.

At the heart of the matter is a need to reconceptualize the meanings and purposes behind education, looking beyond a narrow human capital development model and understanding that education lies at the very heart of democracy and building a better future. For example, by simply asserting smaller class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios, literally thousands of teaching jobs could be created while greatly improving the working conditions of teachers and providing greater supports to our students. When we choose to devalue our schools and teachers we are devaluing both the present and future for our students.

Q: If people are interested in participating in your research how can they get in contact with you? Is there anything else that you want to add?

A: I would like to add that the discussion of teacher un(der)employment is not just about jobs for new teachers. We need to rekindle the conversation regarding the working conditions of educators, whether in a private day-care facility, public school, or as an adjunct lecturer in our universities. Across the board we are witnessing challenges to education workers and the material conditions of teaching. Only collectively can we begin to reassert the fundamental importance of teaching, and the infinite possibilities of education when there is no such thing as “too many teachers”.

If any teachers would like to share their experiences with unemployment and/or underemployment they may contact me by email at mmindzak@uwo.ca.

Precarity, Youth Labour Markets, and Public Policy

2014-11-16T18:45:00.000-05:00

Last month I was part of a panel put on by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, which was entitled "Capitalism and Good Jobs". I was thrilled to be speaking with Jim Stanford and Leah Vosko, as they're both intellectual giants in the study of labour markets and people who I've drawn inspiration from over the years. My speech focused on precarity, youth labour markets, and possible public policy responses to the youth jobs crisis in Canada. A text of my speech appears below and the video of my remarks can be found below.

I want to thank IPAC for inviting me to speak today. It is wonderful to be speaking on such an esteemed panel. To be completely earnest, I grew up reading Jim’s writings and Leah’s research helped inform how I dealt with the theoretical issues in my graduate research, so I’m thrilled to be speaking with them.

I’m going to cover three areas relating to the youth labour market to give some context to the overall discussion that we’re having here today. I’m going to start off with an overview of the issues facing young people, then I’ll move on to discussing specific youth labour market issues and touch on unpaid internships, which is one of my areas of expertise, and finally I’ll end by highlighting some policy options. I should note that my comments are specific to Ontario, but a lot of these points could be applicable to elsewhere in Canada.

What Besets Youths Today?

The situation facing many young people today is nothing less than a crisis. From ever increasing tuition fees to creeping credentialism leading to an educational arms race to skyrocketing housing costs to an extremely rocky school-to-labour market transition – young people are beset on all sides from a stagnant economy and unresponsive policy on the part of government.

It strikes me that at all levels governments have long ignored the growth of precarious work and aren’t grappling with the realities of the new economy, where precarity, anxiety, uncertainty, and massive amounts of stress prevail and represent the new normal. These concepts are literally reshaping how we view the world and how we interact with each other on an individual and societal level.

What’s occurring with the newest generation is the unraveling of our social fabric and creating a pervasive sense that conditions are getting worse. Just consider recent polling from Frank Graves of EKOS which finds that the majority of Canadians feel that the middle class is falling behind and that stark divisions have emerged between younger and older generations. Fully fifty-seven percent of people polled indicated that next generation will be worse off than the one coming before it.

The area that strikes me as most chilling is the social costs we are experiencing from this increased precariatization. Young people are increasingly putting off relationships, forming households, and having children – without economic stability young people simply are oftentimes foregoing the milestones that traditionally marked adulthood. All of this has economic costs as well as we see from trends such as delayed adulthood, boomerang kids, housing unaffordability, and the inability to save for retirement. I would suggest that the downstream costs of all these trends will be enormous amid an aging population and slowing economic growth.

With the growth of these problems we’ve seen the emergence of advocacy groups like Generation Squeeze, which is devoted to intergenerational equity and the generational spending gap, and the Canadian Intern Association, which is devoted to creating a fairer system of internships. These groups are increasingly calling attention to the raw deal that young people are getting in society and demanding ameliorative policy responses. Also, we’re beginning to see organized labour groups, like Unifor and the Canadian Media Guild, championing issues such as precarious work and youth unemployment.

Certainly all of this indicates that there is an increasing level of tension and raises profound questions of legitimacy going forward. I would suggest that unless we, as a society, begin to grapple with these issues none of the foregoing will bode well for the future of our democracy.

Youth Labour Market Issues

The situation that we have now is professionals working in pizza parlours, lawyers making coffee as baristas, and foreign-trained doctors hustling taxi gigs off Uber.

Our economy has essentially stalled and growth isn’t keeping up with the demands for jobs from new labour market entrants. It is apparent the young people, immigrants, women, Aboriginals, and racialized persons face heightened challenges within the labour market and are being buffeted by the winds of economic change.

For young people the challenges facing them read like a grocery list. Just consider these ones: underemployment, unemployment, skills gaps, lack of labour market information, information asymmetries, the lack of training being provided by employers, temporary foreign workers, lack of benefits, two-tiered entitlements, and a shift to a flexible workforce. It is no wonder that young people feel that they are under pressures unseen by previous generations.

I would argue that over the last decade we have seen the emergence of structural problems in the youth labour market directly linked to underemployment, low attachment to employers, and precarious work. While certainly there are still jobs out there for young people, for a growing portion of our young generations the hallmarks of a good job (security, decent wages in the form of a living wage, benefits, set hours of work) simply are not available.

One of the most troubling trends that have developed in the youth labour market is that of unpaid internships. In theory these positions are beneficial as they allow students and young workers access to workplaces to test-out various career options or as a means to gain experience. However, all signs point towards that unpaid internships are often now simply a means for employers to obtain free labour, shift risks and costs onto workers, and sometimes even replace paid employees.

Unpaid internships aren’t tracked via any sort of official statistics, so the best estimates place the number of unpaid internships (i.e. illegal, non-academic internships) in Ontario at somewhere around 100,000. A recent Ministry of Labour inspection blitz showed found that amongst employers using unpaid internships approximately 50% of them violated the Employment Standards Act, just thirteen employers yielded close to $50,000.00 in unpaid wages, which symbolizes a tremendous amount of wage theft and employee misclassification.

These positions are the ultimate form of “right to work” with no wages, no benefits, and often little ability to actually land a good job. We’ve also seen a tragic human toll related to these positions with three students dying in the last ten months while undertaking work-placements. With little workplace law reform having taken place in the last ten years no one bothered to cover interns or students under occupational health and safety laws or extend basic employment standards protections.

Solutions

Now the foregoing has been rather a depressing assessment of where we’re at and I don’t want to end on a negative note. So I’m going to leave you with three broad policy directions that we need to go to address some of the worst excesses of our current economic system.

The first is enacting demand-side labour market policy that takes long-view towards workforce development. As a society we need to do a much better job of linking workers with actual opportunities. This requires a shift away from nearsighted supply-side strategies, which have been proven time and time again to be useless for workers, employers, and wider society. What’s necessary is new forums to bring stakeholders together to identify where opportunities and gaps exists, and then create strategies to address them.

The second is placing intergenerational equity as a key lens through which all policy decisions are evaluated. Increasingly we’re seeing demands from younger citizens for a more responsive and transparent government. The advent of social media has made politicians and bureaucrats instantly accessible. From advocates for childcare to funding for in-vitro fertilization to tuition fees, younger generations want a larger piece of the pie and are acutely aware that spending on them is falling short. Addressing these growing rifts and stopping intergenerational fracturing is necessary task if we’re to maintain the social fabric of Ontario.

Third, alongside a comprehensive labour market strategy there also needs to be a renewal of the social safety net in Canada to address the current realities of the labour market and economy. Programs like Employment Insurance and workers’ compensation are becoming increasingly inaccessible, these trends must be reversed. Next, solutions need to be found to providing citizens with a path to a secure retirement, be it enacting measures like the ORPP or expanding the CPP. Finally, to me it’s increasingly clear that linking economic and social stability can no longer be based entirely on a person holding a job, to this end we need to serious consider implement a guaranteed annual income which would provide a basic level of support to all Canadians regardless of circumstances.

Thanks, that’s all I have for now.

Stephen Poloz's Controversial Advice to Young People: Work For Free

2014-11-07T00:30:00.000-05:00

Stephen Poloz's suggestion that young workers should work for free has been in the news over the past couple days. My take is that he was recommending that young, unemployed workers gain experience via unpaid internships, which is arguably an end run around employment standards laws that prohibit contracting out of the minimum wage. Politically, Poloz's comments were indefensible given the high youth unemployment rate, and we've seen both Joe Oliver and Jason Kenney having to distance themselves from them. Instead of providing a more extensive rebuttal of Poloz's comments (listen to that here) I thought that I would share a wonderful letter from Elizabeth Lane, who is a young worker who is struggling to land a good job. She brings up a lot of good points about the structural problems in the youth labour market. Elizabeth's letter appears directly below.

Well, Stephen Poloz, I can confidently say you are correct on a singular statement: "I'm pretty sure these kids have not taken early retirement."

I would like to refute your remaining comments.

You’re very idyllic, Mr. Poloz. If you volunteer or participate in an unpaid internship, it will enhance your resume, and you will be successful in gaining employment.

You are not alone in your thinking, as even I shared this exact mentality. However, I am a testament to the unreality of your advice.

I am a 24 year old female and a BAH Queen’s University 2012 alum. I worked full-time for a year after graduation (two contract positions), being paid a straddling-the-poverty-line salary. After the completion of the second contract, I faced the job hunt once more. In lieu of an elusive full-time permanent position (a seemingly unachievable dream), I accepted an unpaid internship with a PR firm, carrying with me the naïve hopes it would lead to a paid position.

What I endured during the placement brutally attacked my mental well-being, confidence, and skill set. After continuously being exploited, and thus conducting my own research surrounding the legalities of unpaid work, I decided to leave the three-month internship at the two-month mark. I could not continue justifying to myself that being taken advantage of (i.e. taking out the garbage, washing dishes by hand at events for hours, and being verbally attacked by the female CEO) was worth the “what-if” of an employment opportunity.

Mr. Poloz, are you suggesting I return to such an environment; that I recommend it to my fellow not-in-early-retirement but not-yet-young-professional peers?

Your next bit of advice: volunteering. Funnily enough, I have also checked this box. Advice given to me when I was rejected from my “dream” organization was to gain volunteer experience with that exact organization. That was my only shortcoming, or so I was told. What did I do for the next two months? I volunteered. What did I do when I was referred by employees at said organization to apply for a permanent position? I applied, even using a manager at that very organization as a reference. Did I get an interview? No.

Today, my full-time job is hunting for a full-time job. I work at least 9am-5pm, 7 days a week. I do not have benefits, lieu, overtime compensations. I am an Employment Insurance recipient, however, that ends in December. Yes, I am fortunate that I live with my parents. The truth of the matter is, I would not be able to afford to live without them.

For entry-level positions, which are rare to begin with, do you know the minimum number of years of work experience employers request? 2-3 years. Let me ask you this, how can I gain work experience if employers won’t hire me because I don’t have enough work experience?

Do not mistake my words for purely complaints. I am merely sounding off truths that young people are experiencing day to day, as you stated, “that 200,000 young Canadians are out of work, underemployed or back in school trying to improve their job prospects.”

I have failed to mention that I recently used my own savings to return to school in order to become bilingual, attempting to differentiate myself from the other 199,999 young Canadians.

Something has failed here: the economy, the educating systems, a combination of both. Recent undergraduates are competing with Masters and PhD holders for assistant and coordinator positions. The Class of 2015 is going to be up against the latter two, in addition to undergraduates who now possess years of unpaid internships and volunteer experience.

I cannot offer a current solution to the problem at hand, but Mr. Poloz, I assure you, unpaid work is not the answer.

The Ontario government must take action to protect co-op students

2014-10-07T00:50:00.001-04:00

This is an op-ed piece that appears in today's Toronto Star. I wrote the piece with Claire Seaborn, President of the Canadian Intern Association, and Joshua Mandryk, Co-Founder of Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams. For some of my earlier articles about work-integrated learning, see: here; and here.

Two weeks ago 17-year-old Adam Keunen was killed in an accident while on a high-school co-op placement. Adam’s death marks the third death of a student engaged in work-integrated learning in the last 10 months in Ontario. Like the deaths of Aaron Murray and Wayne Affleck, this situation raises serious questions about workplace protections for students who are increasingly participating in work-integrated learning programs at high schools, colleges and universities.

Over the past decade work-integrated learning has emerged as a key part of Ontario’s secondary and post-secondary education system. While co-operative education, internships, and other training programs for students have enormous advantages, they lack appropriate oversight and regulation by our provincial government and educational institutions. The Courts, academic researchers, and the Ministry of Labour have all recognized that students and young workers are particularly vulnerable in the workplace. Young people at the start of their careers often do not have the experience or knowledge to identify or avoid potentially hazardous situations.

In Ontario, students engaged in unpaid work-integrated learning programs are not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the Employment Standards Act, 2000. Under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act students receive protections only in certain circumstances. This lack of regulatory protection may have contributed to the deaths of these young men, and closing these loopholes could help prevent similar accidents in the future.

Premier Kathleen Wynne should address this situation by taking the following steps.

First, she should appoint an independent third party to conduct a full review of work-integrated learning programs in Ontario at the secondary and post-secondary levels. This review must critically assess the appropriateness of the work being performed by co-op students, whether these programs have sufficient oversight, and whether or not students are being given sufficient training in preparation for their placements. This type of review is not without precedence in Canada; the Alberta government launched a similar review in the wake of death of Andy Ferguson, who died while completing an academic internship at a radio station.

Second, students need to be treated as de facto employees and extended greater protections with respect to employment standards, occupational health and safety, and workers’ compensation. The Ontario government has introduced the Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act. This bill would give co-op students the protections under the health and safety act that other workers already enjoy. The government should move quickly to pass this bill, along with MPP Peggy Sattler’s Greater Protection for Interns and Vulnerable Employees Act, which would grant co-op students basic protections under the Employment Standards Act, 2000. If Ontario is going to continue to expand work-integrated learning programs then students and their parents need to be confident that they possess some modicum of protection while in the workplace.

Third, the Ministry of Labour must begin proactive inspections of workplaces where students are engaged in work-integrated learning programs. The Ministry of Labour needs to work with other ministries, secondary and post-secondary institutions, organized labour, and student groups to develop an inspection program that ensures that employers are taking the necessary precautions to protect students who are in the workplace.

We hope that if these recommendations are implemented we will see a reduction in the number of tragic deaths that have become all too common in this province.

The Results of the Ministry of Labour's Unpaid Internship Inspection Blitz

2014-09-30T17:24:00.000-04:00

Ontario's Ministry of Labour (MOL) has released the results of the inspection blitz targeting employers using unpaid interns in the Greater Toronto Area. The inspection blitz occurred from April 1, 2014, to June 15, 2014, with fifty-six (56) inspections occurring over that period. The industries focused on were: advertising; public relations; computer systems design; consulting services; and, information services. I'm going to briefly analyze the data and provide some insight.

The MOL broke down the results as follows: eight (8) employers had no internship programs; thirteen (13) employers had internship positions that were all exempt (i.e. fell into the academic exclusion or professional trainee exclusion); five (5) employers had internship positions with no contraventions (i.e. they met the criteria under subs. 1(2) of the ESA); seventeen (17) employers did not have active internship programs at the time of the inspection; and, thirteen (13) employers had internship positions which contravened provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("ESA").

For the employers using unpaid interns, in almost forty-two percent (41.9%) of the cases there were breaches of the ESA. These breaches related to minimum wage, vacation pay, public holiday pay, record keeping and wage statements, and hours of work. It strikes me that this is an extremely high rate of contravention given that essentially these were misclassified employees who were being denied: a wage; access to the Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, or to workers' compensation; and, fringe benefits.

The other big chunk of the unpaid internship positions were deemed to be exempt. Given the current state of workplace law in Ontario this means that this group of interns aren't covered under the laws pertaining to employment standards, workers' compensation, or occupational health and safety. This is clearly an area of growing concern given the recent deaths of students and interns in Ontario.

With respect to the five employers who were using unpaid interns with no contraventions, this is unusual given the current state of the case law. Having assessed internship programs for employers it's next to impossible to adhere to the criteria under subs. 1(2) of the ESA and I have concerns about whether there was a proper assessment of the facts with respect to those employers.

Despite the relatively small sample size the results of the inspection blitz suggest that there is a systemic problem with employers ignoring employment standards laws governing unpaid internships and points to a much larger problem in Ontario's labour market (particularly in the GTA). Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams suggests that the results indicate a failure of the complaints-based enforcement model. Certainly I agree with that assessment and I've been informed that the MOL is sitting on hundred of complaints regarding unpaid internships that have so far not been investigated.

I would suggest that the results confirm my long-held assertion that we have a situation of regulatory failure in Ontario with respect to unpaid internships. While it's great that the MOL has started to take steps to address this issue (trust me when I say their thinking has evolved), it's clear that the current regulatory model isn't working and that the widespread problems related to unpaid internships cannot be addressed with the complaints-based system or infrequent inspection blitzes (which are often just public relations exercises).

Going forward it's clear that the Wynne government needs to get serious about addressing the increasingly precarious labour market that young people find themselves in and enact appropriate protections so that employers aren't able to exploit young workers with impunity.

Co-Op Student’s Death Highlights Gaps in Workplace Protections for Young Workers

2014-09-29T10:54:00.000-04:00

Below is a joint press release from the Canadian Intern Association and Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams regarding the tragic death of Adam Keunen, a coop student from the Beamsville area who died on Friday in an industrial accident (see the coverage: here, here, here). My heart goes out to Adam's family and friends for their loss. It's clear that we need to do a lot better here in Ontario when it comes to protecting the health and safety of students and young workers in the workplace.

Co-Op Student’s Death Highlights Gaps in Workplace Protections for Young Workers

Toronto – Last Friday, high school co-op student Adam Keunen died in a workplace accident in West Lincoln, Ontario. This is the third death of a student engaged in a workplace training program in Ontario over the past ten months. Members of the Canadian Intern Association and Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of these young workers. We also urge that every action be taken to ensure that tragedies like this are not repeated.

Over the past decade work-integrated learning has emerged as a key part of Ontario’s secondary and post-secondary education system. Currently, students engaged in unpaid work-integrated learning programs are not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) or the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA). Additionally, students only receive protection under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA) under certain conditions.

These exclusions have real implications. As Amanda Moore reported in the Grimsby Lincoln News, the exclusion of co-op students from OHSA meant that it was the Niagara Regional Police that led the investigation into the workplace accident, rather than the Ministry of Labour, who normally investigates such incidents.

To close these loopholes, the Canadian Intern Association and Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams call upon the Ontario government to bring co-op students and interns under OHSA by passing Minister of Labour Kevin Flynn’s Stronger Workplaces for a Stronger Economy Act, and to grant them other basic workplace protections under the ESA by passing MPP Peggy Sattler’s Greater Protection for Interns and Vulnerable Workers Act.

More broadly, these tragic incidents necessitate that the Ontario government undertake a fulsome review of co-ops, academic internships and experiential learning programs to ensure the safety and well being of students and young workers is being protected. This type of review is not without precedence in Canada as the Government of Alberta launched a similar review in the wake of death of Andy Ferguson, who died while completing an academic internship at a radio station.

In the weeks ahead, both the Canadian Intern Association and Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams will be putting forward solutions that can improve workplace safety for students and give them critical protections while engaged in the school to work transition.

Media Contacts:

Claire Seaborn, Canadian Intern Association:
(647) 528-2348, claire@internassociation.ca

Josh Mandryk, Students Against Unpaid Internship Scams:
(416) 576-1514, joshua.mandryk@mail.utoronto.ca

Doug Ford's Illegal Unpaid Internship Scam

2014-09-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

Respect for the little guy seems to be pure lip service in the bizarro world of Ford Nation (spot the face tattoo). Last month I reported how Rob Ford's now-defunct mayoral campaign was running illegal unpaid internship scams, now I can report that Doug Ford's mayoral campaign is recruiting unpaid interns into positions which contravene Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("ESA").

The Ford's aren't strangers to wage theft or exploiting young workers, oh no. In the aftermath of the 2010 municipal election Nick Kouvalis, Rob Ford's then campaign manager, bragged in speech that "I wanted young kids because I could pay them nothing and they would do what I told them to. I paid them $500 a week and I wanted 60 or 70 hours a week out of them." That statement was a prima facie admission that they were violating the law around minimum wage and overtime pay.

The advertisement states that the Doug Ford campaign wants interns to "work a minimum of 15-20 hours per week" and undertake tasks like "answering emails, inputting campaign data, doing research, assembling and bundling campaign materials, working with volunteers, attending events". These duties are what workers normally get paid for and it's clear that not paying these interns would be a violation of the ESA.

In the last four years both Doug and Rob Ford have done next to nothing to address the skyrocketing youth unemployment rate in Toronto or the chronic underemployment which is now a structural feature of Toronto's youth labour market. Now Doug Ford, who is an absurdly wealthy individual, is caught redhanded here demanding young people to work for free. It's just another greedy demand that highlights the core hypocrisy of claiming to be the underdog while exploiting the very people he claims to represent.

The advertisement appears in a password protected section of York University's Career Centre website, so I can't link to it directly. I have provided a screenshot of the advertisement below. For more of my articles on politicians exploiting unpaid interns, see: here; here; here; and, here.

Potpourri: Speaking, Conferences, and Media

2014-09-25T18:17:00.001-04:00

I have a few updates to share regarding some recent media appearances, potpourri, upcoming speaking events I'm doing.

First off, let's go to the University of Toronto's Varsity newspaper. Iris Robin, the Varsity's Associate News Editor, recently interviewed me about internships in Ontario. You can read the entirety of the interview here; additionally, she penned a great article where she spoke to students about the realities of their experiences doing internships. Finally, I'm quoted extensively in an article by Devika Desai about some of the issues that international students face looking for work in Canada. All the articles are worth a read and quite insightful.

Next up is the fallout from a new study from the Conference Board of Canada, entitled "The Bucks Stop Here" on the generational income gap and the growing disparities in earning, income, and wealth between older and younger workers. I've long held that there's a growing problem related to intergenerational equity in Canada's labour markets and it's nice to see my assertions proven to be correct. I'm quoted in the Canadian Press article covering the study and have a zinger of a line at the end: "I really wonder who the boomers expect are going to buy their pretty houses". The report caused quite a stir and here's some additional commentary from the Toronto Star, the CBC, Paul Kershaw, and Linda McQuaig.

Outmigration, rampant un(der)employment, and the abject lack of intergenerational equity loom large over young people in Atlantic Canada. Students Nova Scotia has started a website entitled "Farewell to Nova Scotia" after releasing a report highlighting the ongoing inaction from MacNeil government in Nova Scotia on youth labour market issues. This was all in response to the MacNeil government ending the Graduate Retention Rebate, which was a critical policy in stemming the outmigration of young people. ICYMI, I gave a keynote speech out in Halifax in March which traced some of the deep problems facing Nova Scotia and how engaging young people is critical to creating a strong economy.

A couple interesting community events are happening in the next week or so. The YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) Festival is happening this coming Saturday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at the University of Toronto Schools and I'll be there for part of it promoting Generation Squeeze. The Good Jobs Summit is happening from October 3rd to 5th and is focused on "finding solutions and new approaches to jobs and the economy". This summit is being put on by Unifor and has a great line-up of speakers, it's free as well so you should totally go to all or part of it.

Finally, I'm going to be speaking at a couple of events around the GTA in the upcoming weeks. First, I'm going to be discussing some research I'm doing on work-integrated learning, occupational health and safety, and workers' compensation at the "Dissent and Resistance in the Workplace" conference happening on October 3rd and 4th in Hamilton. The conference is free and the line-up of presenters looks excellent, so if you're into wonkish labour market stuff do attend. Then on October 15, 2014, I'm going to speaking at an event called "Capitalism and Good Jobs" put on by the Institute of Public Administration in Canada and York University. I'll be speaking with Jim Stanford of Unifor, Professor Leah Vosko of York University, and Dawn Desjardins of RBC. I highly recommend that you attend (register here) as that's a pretty great line-up of speakers, both Jim Stanford and Leah Vosko are among the top minds in Canada when it comes to labour market issues.

Precarity, Unemployment, and Unpaid Internships: an Interview with Andrew Langille

2014-09-08T21:35:00.000-04:00

I recently did an interview with Travis Welowszky, the Editor-in-Chief of London's Openwide magazine, where we discussed youth unemployment, post-secondary education, and unpaid internships. It appears at pages 17 to 20 of their frosh week issue, which you can read here. I've reprinted my interview in its entirety below and have added some links to relevant information.

Travis Welowszky: In light of the recent news that Bell Mobility has shut down their Professional Management Program, which annually recruits hundreds of unpaid interns throughout the company, it appears there is now a heightened awareness surrounding internships in Ontario. What has lead to the Labour Ministry now cracking down on unpaid labour?

Andrew Langille: Over the past few years there has been a growing awareness of the problems associated with unpaid internships in Ontario. At the core, unpaid internships are unfairly target vulnerable segments of population such as young people, recent immigrants, and women returning to the labour force after having children. There’s a deep gendered dynamic inherent within intern culture and it’s becoming readily apparent that young women take on unpaid internships at a far higher rate than men. Finally, unpaid internships are a form of precarious work which are having a deep impact on the economy as young workers are delaying major life events, wages get driven down, and interns are forced to rely on familial support or go into debt to support themselves.

Essentially the Ministry of Labour was forced to act due to sustained pressure from a variety groups and a growing body of evidence that tens of thousands of young workers are being exploited through demands that they provide unpaid labour. Beyond that, recently there have also been a number of tragic deaths of young workers who were engaged in training programs and at least two of these deaths were associated with unpaid internship programs.

Getting governments to engage in proactive enforcement of the laws relating to unpaid internships has been one of the key demands from the intern rights movement, so it’s encouraging to see the Ministry of Labour starting to enforce the law. That being said, there’s still a great deal to be done to adequately protect young workers and students who are engaged in the school-to-labour market transition.

T.W.: What are the legal parameters of unpaid internships in Ontario?

A.L.: The legal parameters governing unpaid internships are rather strict in Ontario.

Unpaid internship are currently legal if part of a requirement of an academic program. In this case students are excluded from the protection of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, but would be covered under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and the Human Rights Code; furthermore, currently students aren’t covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but there’s legislation currently being debated at Queen’s Park that would expand coverage to students and it should be passed sometime this fall. One important note is that if you decide to do an academic unpaid internship that isn’t a requirement of your academic program then you won’t be covered under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and won’t have workers’ compensation if you get injured.

Outside of being a requirement of an academic program unpaid internships are typically illegal. Under ss. 1(2) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 employers have to adhere to a six part test if they want to use unpaid internships. Under the test, an intern can’t replace a paid employee, be paid, or provide any benefit to the employer. Essentially, it means that unpaid interns can’t be doing work for an employer and if they are then it’s a case of employee misclassification and they need to be at least receiving the minimum wage. There have been a number of cases looking at this issue and the law has evolved to be quite harsh towards employers to the point that non-academic internships simply aren’t legal in most situations.

T.W.: Why have employers, many of which are for-profit entities, been relying on free labour as a business model?

A.L.: There are a number of reasons. First, historically the law on unpaid internships hasn’t been proactively enforced by the Ministry of Labour, so for years there was unchecked growth of intern culture and the practice got entrenched in Ontario’s labour market. Second, up until recently there wasn’t a lot of attention paid to unpaid internships, so many employers were ignorant to the fact that Ontario has laws that address unpaid internships. Third, in the wake of the financial crisis there was trends across the economy for employers to cut costs and replacing paid employees with unpaid interns was an attractive way to save money. Fourth, young workers aren’t generally aware of their rights as employees and even when they are there’s a power imbalance that often leads people to stay silent about such issues. Fifth, Ontario has a jobs crisis and there are a huge amount of young people competing for a limited number of jobs, so employers often take advantage of the glut of young workers who need experience. Sixth, post-secondary institutions have been complicit in pushing unpaid internships on students and providing employers with a revolving door of students required to undertake unpaid labour.

T.W.: A common benefit many young workers see in an unpaid internship is the opportunity to gain experience or getting a-foot-in-the-door that could lead to a job in the future. What are the dangers of a 'working for experience only' mentality?

A.L.: The ‘working for experience only’ mentality is a dangerous one to have. Essentially you’re devaluing your labour if you work for free and future employers will notice. I’ve heard about hiring managers questioning potential hires about doing unpaid internships as it goes directly to the concept of self-worth, valuing your time, and self-advocacy. You don’t want to be pegged as the perma-intern. Moreover, the kind of organization that you want to work for will generally pay their students and interns. Employers are increasingly using paid internship programs as a talent acquisition strategy and my advice would be to limit job searches to these type of programs. If an employer isn’t willing to pay you a decent wage for your work then that should serve as a warning sign that the organization will attempt to exploit you in other ways.

T.W.: Students incur a great deal of financial burden: from rising tuition costs and loan repayments to living expenses. How are unpaid internships benefiting those of a more secure economic background?

A.L.: There’s an unsettling narrative that argues that unpaid internships perpetuate disparities related to socio-economic class, income inequality, and wealth inequality. What’s occurring within Ontario’s labour market at present is the trend where employers have somewhat successfully downloaded the costs of training new employees onto students, their families, and ultimately the public. Essentially unpaid internships socialize the risks associated with training new employees by demanding increasingly extreme amounts of unpaid labour. Students and young workers from wealthier backgrounds have a greater ability to engage in the unpaid labour that has become a necessity for entry into fields like journalism, law, or politics.

Unpaid internships have an impact on social cohesion and fuel income equality. We’ve created a labour market where access to entry-level positions is largely based on birth-status, socio-economic class, and the wealth of a person’s parents. These trends inhibit social mobility and decimates any notion of equality as many capable and talented students lose out on opportunities due to the inability to engage in unpaid labour. There’s a creeping cultural apartheid occurring as young people from historical marginalized groups are being shut out from critical professions which control the social, economic, and political level in Ontario. Simply put, the very social fabric of our province is being changed by the exponential increase in the amount of unpaid labour in the labour market.

T.W.: The current rate of youth unemployment in Ontario is the highest in Canada. Do you see a correlation between this statistic and the contention made by the University of Toronto Students' Union (UTSU) that upwards of 300,000 Canadians are misclassified as non-employees or interns earlier this year? Are these figures interrelated?

A.L.: The youth unemployment rate in Ontario currently sits at 15.8% and clearly unpaid internships are playing into Ontario’s youth employment crisis. Precarious work and underemployment are increasingly becoming the new normal for young people in Ontario who are struggling to find good jobs that over the ability to carve out a life. Each year in Ontario well over a hundred thousand young people are forced into providing unpaid labour either through academic programs or due to the demands of unscrupulous employers. This is clearly an intolerable situation that’s having some very insidious effects on the labour market and the overall economy. Governments at all levels need to do a much better job of workforce planning and must create more active labour market programs to assist young people in the school-to-labour market transition.

T.W.: A great deal of your work and social media presence focuses on calling out organizations that are taking advantage of young workers. Have you found your own work gaining traction now that more eyes appear to be on the issue of unpaid labour in Ontario?

A.L.: I started researching unpaid internships three years ago and interest has been growing ever since. Now there are a lot of organizations advocating around this issue, politicians have taken up the cause, and we’re starting to see a statutory and regulatory response from governments. Throughout all of this social media has been critical in advocacy efforts as it’s a no-cost way to disseminate information to a large amount of people instantaneously. Using social media also allows for people, who may be geographically dispersed, to organize and rally support.

Will Work for Crack: Rob Ford's Illegal Unpaid Internship Scam

2014-09-03T15:37:00.000-04:00

Rob Ford holds a very dear place in my heart. Back in 2010 the first press that this blog got was for covering the comments of Nick Kouvalis, Rob Ford's then Campaign Manager, who boasted about underpaying staffers when he said: "I wanted young kids because I could pay them nothing and they would do what I told them to. I paid them $500 a week and I wanted 60 or 70 hours a week out of them." That statement was a clear admission that the Rob Ford campaign was breaking the minimum wage rules under Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000 ("ESA").

Fast forward to 2014 and Ford is back at it with more wage theft, employee misclassification, and flaunting his ability to violate the ESA. Jeff Corbett, the Rob Ford campaign's Intern Coordinator, confirmed to me this afternoon on a telephone call that the Rob Ford campaign is actively recruiting unpaid interns. Currently there are advertisements on Kijiji and Craigslist recruiting unpaid interns (I've included a screenshot below).

The advertisements state that the Rob Ford campaign wants interns to "work a minimum of 15-20 hours per week" and undertake tasks like: "answering emails, inputting campaign data, doing research, assembling and bundling campaign materials, working with volunteers, attending events". These duties are what people normally get paid for and it's clear that these internships would be in clear violation of the ESA.

Last week Doug Ford said "There's no one that even stands close to Rob Ford when it comes to supporting youth." That's simply not true - from sexually harassing a former staffer to charging user fees to impoverished children for recreation programs to ignoring young unemployment in Toronto to forced labour to making his players roll around in goose shit - what we have currently is a mayor with policies that are explicitly anti-youth and who literally abuses young staffers. Why would a multi-millionaire demand that young people work for him for free? It's a greedy demand and one that highlights the core hypocrisy of an extremely wealthy individual running on a populist agenda.

Is Bell Mobility's Professional Management Program closing?

2014-08-07T17:03:00.000-04:00

Update: Albert Lee, a public relations staffer with Bell, released this rather cagey statement to the Canadian Press earlier this afternoon: "Bell offers a variety of ways for students, graduates and other young professionals to start their careers with us. The Professional Management Program was completed last April and is no longer available, but anyone looking to join Bell should visit our career website at http://jobs.bce.ca to review the options." The PMP is finished.

Trouble seems to be brewing within Bell Mobility's much derided Professional Management Program ("PMP"). I've previously covered the PMP, so take a look at this article if you want the sorrid backstory. I can confirm that that the PMP is not accepting new unpaid interns and the recruitment website is down. That being said, there still seems to be numerous unpaid interns staffing the PMP, so the overall status of the program isn't exactly clear.

The tenuous status of the PMP appears to be related to ongoing challenges within the regulatory sphere and being featured in a New York Times article. The PMP is currently the subject of litigation under the Canada Labour Code and there's proposed legislation from the NDP that would put strict controls on unpaid internships at federally-regulated employers. Both of these challenges don't bode particularly well for the future of the PMP.

The PMP was started by Henry Mar, a senior director at Bell Mobility, a number of years ago and has historically employed hundreds of unpaid interns at Bell Mobility's Mississauga offices. The operations of the PMP has been the focus of investigations by CBC's The National and the Toronto Star. Essentially, the issue boils down to why Bell Mobility refuses to pay wages to hundreds of young people who are doing highly beneficial work for the corporation. I might add that BCE Inc., Bell Mobility's parent company, is posting rather hefty profits these days and the continuing refusal to pay wages seems odd.

If there are anymore developments in this ongoing saga I will pass them along, but here's hoping that one of the worst offenders in the unpaid internship racket is changing their ways. Finally, here's a video where a former PMP intern discusses what she was asked to do at Bell Mobility.

Why are Canadian politicians addicted to unpaid labour?

2014-08-05T13:50:00.001-04:00

This is a guest blog post that I did for Samara Canada on the topic of unpaid labour in the context of Canadian politics. This is the first of two posts examining the growth of unpaid labour in context of politics. The second blog post will examine the use of unpaid labour in the context of American politics.

One of the most controversial subjects that I cover on my website, Youth and Work, is the use of unpaid internships by politicians. Over the four years since I started the website I have uncovered politicians at all levels and in every party using unpaid interns, often illegally and in contravention of labour laws. I penned this piece to shed some light on the matter, address some of the unintended consequences, and offer some solutions.  

To begin, let me unequivocally state that I’m not against volunteering in the context of political campaigns. Getting involved in an election campaign is a great way to meet like-minded individuals, develop new skills, and contribute to civic life. There is, however, a fine line between door knocking for a candidate and asking people to work for free doing day-to-day political and constituency work. I have close friends and family who have worked for the three major parties and everyone confirms a trend towards politicians routinely asking young people to undertake more and more unpaid labour. Simply put, working for free for prolonged periods has largely become a rite of passage for anyone interested in a career as a political staffer.

But why is this happening? I have a few explanations. The first is rather obvious: as our society has become more complex, politicians have had more demands foist upon them—but resources remain scarce. Office budgets simply haven’t kept up with the needs arising from constituents and bringing on some free help is an attractive option. Second, politics is a prestige industry and there’s an endless supply of wealthy, bright-eyed graduates lining up for a limited pool of opportunities to put political experience on their résumés. This is a simple supply and demand issue. Third, for the better part of the past three decades a growing ambivalence towards the rights of workers has led some politicians (along with employers in a number of industries) to feel that they’re above the law when it comes to paying interns.   

A "diverse" group of Liberal staffers celebrating the recent victory.

Now here’s the danger in relying on vast amounts of unpaid labour: it’s addictive. Take Washington for example, where tens of thousands of unpaid interns literally keep three branches of government functioning. At a deeper level there are threats arising from an over-reliance on unpaid interns and paid staffers coming from homogeneous backgrounds (i.e. White, university educated, upper-middle class). My greatest fear is that politics in Canada is cutting itself off from the input of historically marginalized groups at a time when inequalities are becoming more pronounced. What we’re seeing currently is youths from marginalized communities (i.e. racialized, lower socio-economic, or immigrant) facing structural barriers to political involvement—a glass ceiling that prevents them from full participation in key societal institutions. In a sense, unpaid internships are an exclusionary cultural practice that feeds alienation by denying people access to levers of power through which change can be effected.   

The foregoing is a stark assessment of unpaid internships in politics and I would be remiss if I didn’t advance some solutions. First, budgets for staff need to be increased to meet the realities of our increasingly complex political system and society. Politicians need to be adequately resourced to do their jobs and having enough paid staff is key. Second, paid internship programs like the Ontario Legislature Internship Programme and the Parliamentary Internship Programme (both of which are inexcusably White) need to be expanded into a recruitment tool for the civil service and employment equity policies instituted to attract interns from historically marginalized communities. Third, politicians need to adhere to labour laws and compensate young people working for them with a living wage.

  The incentives to hiring unpaid interns in the political world are quite clear, but so are its risks. Let’s follow through on the above prescriptions and get on the job of making participation in our democracy more accessible for everyone.