Experience or Exploitation: The Ethics of Internships in the Creative Industries
Australia’s appetite for internships is increasing. While growth is difficult to gauge, more and more young professionals and are seeking experience in highly competitive industries, at any — or no — cost. The creative industries sit at the centre of this growth, led by media and communications and my area of specialization, public relations. However, an increase in internships incites discussion about their ethics. When does ‘getting a foot in the door’ become exploitative? And what distinguishes experience from paid work? In addressing these questions, I’ll explore the fine ethical line of unpaid work in Australia, considering how working conditions and innovation influence this discussion.
The Rise of Internships in the Creative Industries
While little long-term data exists, the market for internships in Australia has traditionally been small compared to other nations, America in particular. The lack of research may imply that internships occurred infrequently in the past. However, things are changing: in the last five years, Australia’s intern advocacy and support body Interns Australia suggest there has been growth in the frequency of internships. The creative industries are at the forefront of this growth, with UK academics Sabina Sibert and Fiona Wilson suggest “unpaid work is often the only route into the [creative industries]”. Specifically, Interns Australia found that internships were more prevalent in media and communications (at 23.40 per cent) than any other industry, followed by the arts (at 15.70 per cent). Furthermore, in an independent case study, the Australian Financial Review found that more than half of the jobs advertised for public relations, publishing and media on popular job site pedestrian.tv were related to volunteer and unpaid positions. In contrast, although there were fewer internships available in IT, technology and engineering industries, approximately 50 per cent were paid. These findings suggest that the creative industries — encompassing media and communications more broadly — are at the centre of the expanding internship market. More internships are available in this industry and businesses are less likely to offer candidates remuneration for their work. As a result, the ethical issues of internships are more frequently occurring — and therefore more relevant — in my area of specialization. But why is this the case, and how did the creative industries develop a culture of mandatory unpaid work?
Siebert and Wilson discuss what drives the prevalence of internships in the creative industries, proposing that young professionals complete unpaid work in “the hope of securing a permanent job”. Furthermore, they suggest that the industry “appears to impose an obligation and expectation of unpaid work”. Of questionnaire respondents surveyed, 59 per cent agreed that unpaid work was exploitative, yet many still believed internships were crucial in securing employment. Statistics from Interns Australia support this result, finding that 51 per cent of survey respondents agreed that completing an internship was a pre-requisite to finding paid work. Interestingly, the data does not support this consensus: Intern Australia’s 2015 Annual Survey found that only 21 per cent of respondents completing unpaid internships received job offers from their employer, while paid interns faired only slightly better at 30 per cent. These findings suggest that the “increasingly uncertain and competitive” labour-market of the creative industries has normalized the expectation of unpaid work. In the following section, I’ll discuss how this has affected the workplace and emerging creative practitioners.
The Ethical Issues of Internships
Exploitation, Innovation and Informality
The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) suggests that there is a “fine line between experience and exploitation” in their 2011–2012 Annual Report. Where that line crosses, however, is not always as clear. While there are a number of definitive qualities that distinguish ethical unpaid work from exploitation, there remains a level of ambiguity — in both practice and theory — due to the subjective and varied nature of each internship arrangement.
FWO provides guidelines of what constitutes ethical unpaid work, proposing that:
- the reason for the arrangement must be to provide the worker with experience
- the longer the arrangement, the more likely it becomes that the worker deserves remuneration
- the more significant the worker is to the organisation — or if they’re completing tasks that a paid worker would — they’re more likely to deserve remuneration
Although this presents a clear if not limited guide, the nature of exploitation itself is difficult to define and moderate. Should an individual be allowed to be exploited if they chose to work without pay? Australian academics Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas discuss this further, asking “how can we distinguish work from pleasure, and pleasure from self-exploitation?” To address this, they analyze the culture of innovation and informal or flexible work practices in the creative industries. Flexible working arrangements, which refer to changes in the time or place work is completed, have dramatically transformed the way people work, adding a new dimension to the discussion concerning creative workers, experience and exploitation. Significantly, innovation — particularly technological innovation — has enabled informal work practices. In this way, innovation — which Australian academic John Hartley suggests shares a deep connection with the creative industries — can be understood to influence, and frequently, contribute to exploitation. As innovation enables new working arrangements, it too facilitates new ethical issues and avenues for exploitation.
Perpetuation of Disadvantage
Interns Australia report that unpaid internships perpetuate disadvantage. Individuals who cannot afford to work without payment are unable to commit the time and resources required to undertake an internship. As a result, Siebert and Wilson argue that people without the “required social, economic and cultural” capital are significantly disadvantaged when pursuing a career in the creative industries; they suggest that this in turn affects the diversity of the sector.
The Wider Industry
While interns are said to bring “fresh talent, knowledge and enthusiasm” to the workplace, they do so at a cost: Siebert and Wilson suggest cheap (or indeed, free) labour undermines the value of creative workers already in the industry. As a result, tensions can exist between staff and interns, and the quality of work produced by both parties can deteriorate. Furthermore, Interns Australia argue that unpaid work gives businesses a “competitive advantage over… rivals that comply with labour laws”. This affects the national economy more broadly, such as in the loss of tax revue.
The Verdict
There are no easy answers to the problems presented here — indeed, a great deal of thought, legislation and literature has already gone into improving the conditions for unpaid workers in Australia. The subjective nature of what constitutes exploitation, and indeed, what distinguishes it from experience, only slows down the development of better regulatory settings for unpaid workers. Even as policies improve, it is possible that the availability of internships will decrease, as businesses will find fewer incentives to take on interns at the cost of more resources, time or money. However, if this facilitates the development of fairer working conditions for young professionals, it can only be seen as a good thing.