Why is Senator Doug Black Exploiting Unpaid Interns?

If there's a group of individuals in Canada more arrogant and entitled than Conservative Senators please let me know. Over the last four months we've seen sexual assault charges laid, a mysterious $90,000.00 cheque exchanged, and persistant allegations of illegal spending. Joining the club of senators doing highly questionable things is Doug Black, the newly minted Senator from Alberta, who is recruiting a number of unpaid interns for his Parliament Hill office.

Senator Black recently posted an advertisement (it appears below) looking for multiple unpaid interns. He wants a Policy and Legislation Intern to: gather information and provide analysis on committee work, legislation, and policy issues; provide administrative support; and, attend meetings and events. He also wants a Communications and Events Intern to: write speeches, blog posts, and social media content; media monitoring; organizing events in Alberta and Ottawa; provide administrative support; and, attend events and meetings. Senator Black prefers unpaid interns that can work full-time. Make no mistake about it, this is work for which Parliament Hill staffers typically get paid for.

Senator Doug Black

To state that Senator Black is cheap would be an understatement. The cost to pay two interns the minimum wage for four months (i.e. two interns at $10.25 per hour, at forty hours per week, over four months) would be $14,213.33. Considering that senators' office budgets can easily surpass $150,000.00 per year I fail to see how money can't be found to pay these interns. Senator Black is also an absurdly wealthy lawyer who made a career at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP hawking dirty oil from the tarsands. Senator Black wants the young Canadians working for him to subsidize the cost of running his office - essentially what he's doing is downloading rent, food, and living expenses directly onto the backs of the interns (and their families).

What Senator Black is doing, at a time of record high youth unemployment and rampant underemployment, is nothing less than slapping young Canadians in the face. The message to youth is: you're worthless, you aren't deserving of a wage, and I can exploit you with impunity. This is a great example of how Stephen Harper and his Conservative cadre are completely ignoring the increasingly desperate economic plight of young Canadians. When the Conservatives aren't attacking labour rights, they're bringing in temporary foreign workers to steal jobs from young Canadians, or simply exploiting unpaid interns to look thrifty (by the way, thrifty isn't a phrase I would use to describe Senator Black).

Another disturbing trend that Senator Black's advertisement exposes is the disturbing trend in Canadian politics to require young political staffers to work for little or no pay. By requiring young workers to forego wages the diversity of political staffers becomes increasingly narrow in terms of race, socio-economic status, educational attainment, and family status. Simply put, young workers from historically marginalized groups are simply cut out from gaining experience working for politicians - this is a trend that we're seeing in other elite professions such as law and journalism.

Over the relatively short lifespan of this blog I've caught the following politicians violating minimum employment standards: Toronto City Councillor Ana Bailao; alleged crack cocaine addict Rob Ford; former Parliamentary Secretary to Ontario's Minister of Labour Laura Albanese; and, the failed Toronto politician Sarah Thomson. All of these examples span years and partisan affiliations, but the commonalities amongst them is the absolute willingness to exploit young workers and snub minimum employment standards. We're seeing a disturbing indifference to illegal unpaid labour within the political class that has dangerous ramifications for Canada's labour markets, the wider economy, social stability, and long-term economic growth. This systemic indifference to basic labour rights doesn't just relate to young workers, but also extends to migrant workers, live-in caregivers, the working poor, recent immigrants, and racialized workers.

For recent articles on the deployment of illegal unpaid internships in Canada's labour markets, see: here, here, here, and here. Take a look at Senator Black's advertisement below and then send an email (or a tweet: @DougBlackAB) to let him know how you feel about his hands-on approach to destabilizing Canada's youth labour market.