Prior to an amendment to the Canada Labour Code in 2015, it was legal in Canada for businesses to hire interns without any obligation to pay them for their work.
Through the amendment, which took effect in 2020, the federal government gave labour standards protections to Canadian interns, which included the right to be paid a minimum wage.
That is, unless the intern is a student.
Student interns completing a mandatory learning placement as part of the requirements of an educational program have no right to be paid for their labour. In fact, the activities completed by student interns during their placements are not even considered to be “work.”
As with many professional degrees, knowledge gained within a classroom serves as a foundation for the vital work experience needed to succeed professionally. Field education has been called the “signature pedagogy” of social work education, and is vital to preparing students for their future careers.
But as a profession, how this work experience for students is gained and enforced matters.
Social workers have a duty to follow the profession’s ethical guidelines to promote fairness, advocate for equality, and remain dedicated to changing policies, programs and legislation that contribute to oppressive practices.
Unpaid, mandatory internships directly conflict with these duties.
Critics of unpaid student internships deem these practices two-fold economic exploitation. Firstly, the organizations accepting student interns reap the benefits of unpaid labour. Although the focus during field practice is intended to prioritize learning rather than productivity, the level of work expected of students is, in practice, often equivalent to that of their employed counterparts. Students are also responsible for covering the costs of any training and certifications needed to begin their placements.
The second form of economic exploitation is from the universities themselves. At many universities, including Carleton University, students are required to pay full tuition fees to their university during their placement terms despite working off-campus and not taking full course loads. At the master’s level, Carleton social work students spend the equivalent of four months each year working full-time without pay in order to satisfy the 450 practice hours they are required to complete by the Canadian Association of Social Work Education.
The tuition fees during this period of time equate to thousands of dollars.
The practice of unpaid mandatory placements is common at universities across Canada, but it is not experienced equally across student demographics.
In a concerning pattern that echoes the devaluation of women’s labour in the paid labour market, programs taken predominantly by female students (for example, social work, nursing and education) are more likely to have unpaid practicum placements than university programs taken predominantly by male students (for example, engineering, business and medicine).
Not only is this a gendered issue, but a racialized one as well. Black, Indigenous, and low socioeconomic status communities have been found to be disproportionately impacted by the policies of unpaid mandatory placements in academic institutions.
As a profession, social work is under scrutiny for straying too far from its purpose of social justice, and becoming complacent within systems that maintain structures of oppression. This includes the very institutions that qualify social workers.
Mandatory field education without financial compensation inevitably reduces the diversity of social work programs, restricting them to those who are financially privileged enough to sustain months of work without pay. These class barriers to social work education contribute to the oppression of marginalized groups who otherwise might pursue their interest in the program.
The Canadian Association for Social Work Education is responsible for setting the accreditation standards for social work programs. Is that where their responsibility to uphold social work ethical guidelines ends?
In creating such requirements for social work education without securing appropriate financial support for the burdens they cause, this accrediting body creates a system of discrimination and inequality.
The profession of social work cannot claim to be the bastion of fairness and social justice, while relying upon programs that directly exclude, oppress and discriminate against marginalized groups.
As social workers, we must call for action against such injustice in the following ways:
- The federal government must amend the Canada Labour Code and protect the right of student interns to be paid for their work while obtaining a higher education. Canada is already under scrutiny for labour standards that allow oppressive and harmful practices to occur. It is time to rethink how we value student labour in Canada.
- Employment and Social Development Canada must expand the Student Work Placement program to include wage subsidies for post-secondary programs like social work, education and nursing placements. This would remove the burden of cost from community organizations, and would allow fair compensation to students completing valuable and skilled work during their placements.
- It’s time for Canadian post-secondary institutions like Carleton to end the unfair practice of charging full-time tuition fees while students complete their field hours. It is unacceptable that students working full-time field placements are expected to pay full-time tuition fees without gaining the equivalent full-time services from the university. The removal of these fees, in whole or in part, would reduce the class barrier to social work education and realign academic institutions with the values of equality and fairness they teach.
As a profession, we are being challenged to examine ourselves critically, to reflect on the systems and structures we contribute to and benefit from and take active steps to address social injustice when we see it.
Standing by and allowing the continuance of unpaid mandatory placements in university programs is simply not in line with the ethics of what it means to be a social worker.
Featured graphic from files.
