Australia launches inquiry into unpaid internships

Australia has been taking some innovative steps to assess and respond to the needs of workers in the new economy. Fresh off the end of hearings in the Howe Inquiry into precarious work, the Fair Work Ombudsman has commissioned a report into unpaid internships within the Australian labour market.

Nick Wilson, the Fair Work Ombudsman, was recently quoted as saying "One thing I did see last year was a fairly outrageous newspaper headline which was talking about using effectively free labour, and it was encouraging people to try internships but effectively not pay people for the time that they worked in the organization. Now that is just simply exploitation, and it is not acceptable."

The Fair Work Ombudsman has retained Andrew Stewart and Rosemary Owens, two University of Adelaide Law School professors, who will examine the rise of unpaid internships and whether this type of employment is being properly regulated. Both are well-respected experts in workplace law and have extensive experience in mechanisms for labour market regulation.

Ms. Owens opined that "We know that anecdotally this issue of internships is one that has grown enormously in recent years. Often it come with either an express or explicit problem that such internships will lead to a paid positions and we understand that is very often not the case and these internships often involve working for very extended periods of time. If it would be wrong to overpay such people then surely it is wrong not to pay them at all. We are interested in looking at the question, there is no prejudgement at all as we know internships are often components of courses that students undertake."

Innovative examinations into various kinds of precarious work in other jurisdictions serve as a juxtaposition into how little capacity exists within the Ontario government to address changes within the labour market. Just from the perspective of governance and public policy development I'll leave you with the question of whether we'll ever see the Ministry of Labour respond in a manner similar to that of the Fair Work Ombudsman's inquiry into the rapid growth of unpaid internships. I'd suggest that we'll never see this sort of response and that should be concerning to any reasonable observer. Finally, here's a video report on insecure work in Australia, see: 

Facebook, social media passwords, and job interviews

Just a short post. Wanted to let people know that The Eyeopener, Ryerson University's student newspaper, has posted an interesting article on social media passwords and job interviews. I'm quoted extensively in it and state that "With the weight of the financial crisis and the recession, we're in a period where jobs are hard to come by, especially for young people. Employers appear to have taken this as a carte blanche to violate people's rights and plunge into their personal information, which they have no right to look at." Asking for access to personal social media accounts is an illegal practice that should not be tolerated by job applicants or executives overseeing human resources departments - frankly, it's one of many invasive practices that have been pioneered by HR professionals who are ignorant of the legal implications of what they're doing.

This is an emerging issue within the field of workplace law and not a lot has been written about it. It's a fascinating area that stands at the intersection of workplace rights, technology, privacy, and the changing role of communication in our lives; furthermore, it's an areas that has a disproportional impact on young workers as they're the main users of social media websites. In the coming months I'll have more to share with you as I'm currently researching this topic in preparation for writing an academic paper for one of my courses. In the meantime, check out some of my previous articles on social media, see: here, here, and here. Also, check out this recent video about the practice of asking for social media passwords, see: