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

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.