Students across Quebec will be participating in a general strike starting March 18 to protest the provincial government’s refusal to prohibit universities and CEGEPs from sustaining unpaid internship programs.
Grève des Stages, one of the two major coalitions that regulate student activist groups targeting the issue of unpaid labour, said in a news release that “the floor has been taken by over 20,000 students with a strike mandate of at least one week” in the regions of Laurentides, Montreal, Outaouais, Quebec City, and Sherbrooke.
Joëlle Dupuis, an organizer for the Conseil central ultime sur le travail étudiant, the second major coalition group for unpaid internships in Quebec, said students are striking to demand government intervention and require universities and CEGEPs to recognize interns’ work through payment.
“Unpaid internships are seen like cheap labour by employers, especially in programs where students have to take charge of clients or patients,” she said. “The fact that these internships are not paid sends the message that interns’ work is not considered real work, even if many interns do the same job as the employees around them.”
The Labour Code Interpretation Guide dictated by the Quebec Commission des Normes du Travail defines an employee as “a person who works for an employer and who is entitled to a wage.” Unpaid interns, who are not entitled to a wage and therefore fall within the category of “volunteers,” are not protected by the Code’s regulations in cases of injuries and harassment in the workplace.
According to Dupuis, what rights an intern might have while working for an organization are individually outlined by universities and CEGEPs.
“The Université du Québec à Montréal’s students, for example, are not even protected by any policy regarding sexual harassment in their internship territory,” she said.
A statement released by Quebec Minister of Education and Higher Education Jean-François Roberge said the inequities seen by students with internship conditions have been acknowledged by the ministry, though resolutions are still in progress.
“Work on this [issue] is progressing rapidly at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education,” he said, “and I pledge to submit, by the end of April, all possible solutions.”
Emily Norgang, senior researcher at the Canadian Labour Congress, said unpaid internships are often disproportionately expected of students in minority-dominated industries.
“You are more likely to see unpaid internships in sectors that are predominantly women, racialized workers, and new immigrants,” she said.
Norgang added that the expectation that students should be working without pay in order to guarantee themselves a job within their field of study “marginalizes already low-income families who don’t have the privilege to take on unpaid work, contributing to a cycle of inequality.”
While some schools, such as McGill University, ensure compensation for its interning students by pledging to only endorse “unpaid internships/opportunities [if] the organization is not-for-profit,” most education administrations have yet to meet student calls for reform.
According to Norgang, if the government of Quebec wishes to appease its students, actions to regulate internship programs will need to be taken through the principle of “equal pay for equal work” while implementing programs such as Youth Job Guarantees, which will ensure students obtain “meaningful, paid employment” within an appropriate amount of time following graduation.
Despite slow progress following the movement’s conception in 2017, at least one student remains hopeful for the future.
Miriam Lafontaine, a third-year journalism student at Concordia University, who will be striking with her fellow journalism classmates, said movements of this nature have a history of success within the province.
“I think it’s the culture of Quebec to respond to the government’s actions through strikes,” she said. “Students have been using general limited strikes since at least the 1970s and 80s, and they’ve always led to students getting what they wanted.”
Image from file
