There are about a hundred of us in the room. The excitement is such that the meeting intended to present the terms of the internship is struggling to begin; the collective excitement is palpable. The atmosphere changes abruptly when the first hand is raised to ask the question that is burning everyone’s lips: “How are we going to make ends meet?”
The anxiety of having to support ourselves while devoting 35 hours a week of our time to an unpaid internship is general. This is when students realize the magnitude of the challenges that await them for 16 weeks due to the inequalities inherent in these internships, which are still present for yet another start of the school year.
Tensions rise, questions fly. “Do we have to pay tuition while we’re on an internship?” Sure, $1,500.
“Are we financially supported for the gasoline we have to use to get to our internship locations?” No.
“My internship is 40 minutes from home. So I’m going to have to pay for all this gas?” Yes.
“My engineering friend gets paid for his internship, why not us?”
Faintness.
The students suddenly become aware of the problem, and this in front of an equally helpless teaching staff. The feeling of helplessness is shared by everyone in the room.
So here it is: I have 35 hours of free work to do and now I have to find another job to pay my rent, my tuition, my groceries and the cost of transportation to get to my internship. I’m thinking about an intervention position, but after 35 hours of internship, all this human struggle has worn me out. We’re all tired… and it’s only been a week since it started. How are we going to keep up this pace for 16 weeks?
My parents, I need you. And for those who don’t have the financial support of their parents? They turn to their partners: “I need help, can you pay for groceries this week?” They are already stuck in a situation of financial dependency. Are we doomed to this vulnerability because we aspire to help others?
The most frustrating thing is that unpaid internships are vastly overrepresented in female-dominated fields: social work, psychoeducation, teaching, and nursing, among others. Conversely, in fields like engineering, information technology, and administration—fields that are male-dominated—internships are paid. Why am I not getting paid for my internship when my friend in engineering makes at least $20 an hour?
The Perspective scholarship, while appreciated, misses its target. A gender disparity persists. In the eyes of the government, my work as a social work student is not considered a profit-generating activity. However, should we not recognize that this work, which directly contributes to the well-being of individuals, deserves to be valued in line with its social and human impact? This inequality reveals a market logic deeply rooted in our education system, with, once again, women footing the bill.
Faced with this injustice, Quebec students mobilized in the streets: they are “fed up with being volunteers”! There were 57,000 of us on strike on November 10, 2023 to denounce this exploitation. The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) gave us a timid hope with an empty promise to pay public sector internships. Minister Pascale Déry unambiguously agreed with the idea that all people on internships “deserve to be paid.” Her words were clear: “When young people reach the end of their studies and work 30 to 40 hours a week in the network, they deserve a salary.”
Since then, nothing. Is this other caquiste inconsistency an invitation to go back out into the streets?