Thinking about permaculture…
Internships in permaculture: a continuing dilemma
Internships:
- provide experience and insight into a line of work
- provide the labour input otherwise unaffordable to small scale permaculture farm start-ups
- provide immersion in permaculture lifeways
- benefit those with funds and the time to do unpaid work
- raise questions about social justice
- raise questions about whether interns are legally regarded as workers or volunteers
- raises questions over insurance for interns on permaculture and other enterprises
- brings into question whether permaculture and small scale agricultural enterprises are economically viable without the free labour of interns and WWOOFers
- are seen as free labour by some businesses
- replace entry level jobs
- discriminate against middle aged workers
- discriminate against working class youth.
I quote reader comments like some of these from an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) online story about internships through this story to illustrate the suspicion with which internships are held by the public.
INTERNSHIPS on permaculture properties offer the hands-on experience that turns the theoretical learning of a permaculture design course into real-world knowledge.
Something like WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms, a scheme linking volunteers, often travellers, seeking unpaid farm work in exchange for food and accommodation) with a permaculture focus, and internships on permaculture properties are not without their critics. Nor are they an exception to the use of interns by business generally. If legislation is eventually introduced to regulate how business uses interns, that will affect permaculture properties too.
What are internships?
Internships are an exchange between intern and employer. They are usually shorter-term arrangements in which the employer provides training in return for the individual’s unpaid labour. The arrangement is supposed to provide the intern with employable skills and insight into an industry.
That’s the theory, anyway. Now, it appears that internships sometimes have a dark underbelly of exploitation.
The question is whether internship providers see interns as a source of free labour to maintain their property or as learners exchanging labour for learning.
Modern slavery techniques in industries that can afford to pay applicants training costs and remuneration for time — comment on ABC article
Internships in permaculture
There are two reasons why internships have been adopted in permaculture.
The first reason is to gain insight and to experience the permaculture lifestyle through immersion in it. As in most internships, it is mainly young people who seek out internships as they have few of the financial or other responsibilities of middle aged people. Living in a permaculture education centre or on a small farm and engaging in daily management tasks provides what for many is a valuable life experience from which to decide whether the life is for them. It also provides a sense of engaging in meaningful work.
Small market gardens or farms, including those operated by permaculture practitioners, welcome interns because they provide the labour the farmers would not otherwise be able to afford. The lower productivity of interns is offset by their costing the farmer only food and accommodation.
Relying on the unpaid labour of interns and WWOOFers raises the question whether some small organic farms are economically viable without free labour. This has been raised in online fora. If they are not viable without recourse to free labour, it bring into question whether small farms really are the solution they are often painted as being.
A rort by any measure — comment on ABC article.
The risk: a lack of standards in the unregulated labour market
Internships on small farms and in permaculture are part of the unregulated labour market. That leaves them open to exploitation although there is no suggestion that the majority of internship providers in permaculture are exploiters.
The labour market is regulated to enforce fair work conditions and pay. It is the question of working conditions that is behind some of the dissatisfaction with internships on permaculture properties and small, usually organic, farms. The possibility for exploitation is there because there are no binding or voluntary standards for internships within permaculture. The idea of standards comes up from time to time but falls over because there is no single agency within permaculture with the authority to set, let alone enforce internship or other workplace standards. Doing that falls to the legal system.
Internships benefit both intern and employer where the employer, or the farmer, sees interns as more than free labour and offers authentic training and good working conditions. Many, though not all, who have been interns on permaculture properties appear to be satisfied with their experience. This seemed to be the situation when some time ago I spoke with someone who had been an intern on the Tweed Valley property of the Permaculture Research Institute (the Institute later moved to The Channon in northern NSW). He appeared to enjoy the experience but admitted that the work was hard and there were not enough interns or volunteers to get ahead of it. At the time, the Institute offered fee-paying internships as follow-ons to its permaculture design courtses.
Because internship arrangements are generally agreeable, some will say government regulation is not needed, that internships should be a private matter between the parties involved. That’s a distinctly neoliberal arrangement and it’s okay when it is win-win and both parties draw benefit from it. It will be problems with internships in the broader labour market that would bring government regulation to permaculture.
Disgusting. Unpaid labour is slavery. The proper way to do it is with probationary periods — comment on ABC article.
Internships favour the funds-and-time-affluent
A 2017 report by Australia’s federal Department of Employment revealed that internships can result in offers of paid employment although this was not all that common. It suggested internships have value but that value is reduced by their favouring those who have the funds and time to be able to work for nothing but experience.
This raises the question of social justice and opportunity in employment. Around the time the Australian report came out, MPs in the UK accused internships or discriminating against working class youth who have neither the personal wealth nor the time to do free work. They talked about outlawing them. That feeling would be shared by some in Australia who are critical of the way internships can reduce job opportunities for young people by substituting them with free labour.
Where employers make use of interns, does that take paid roles out of the job market? Yes, some say. Internships replace entry level jobs, further disadvantaging young people trying to enter working life and who cannot afford to do an internship.
The report adds to the existing conversation around the impact on individuals and the job market, and growing dissatisfaction with the unregulated market for free workers that is internships. Unions and other organisations are wary of the practice. Although there is growing disquiet it has not yet become a political issue. That might not be far away.
It also freezes out mature age candidates from the market, as they have more financial responsibilities that prevent them from doing unpaid work — comment on ABC article.
Is paying to be an intern justified?
Is paying to do an internship a valid arrangement or is it merely monetising the practice? People paying to do unpaid work as an intern is something we find in permaculture from time to time. Presumably, payment covers food, accomodation and, perhaps, intern insurance.
An online conversation on the UK permaculture association’s social media disclosed allegations of exploitative conditions on unnamed permaculture farms, including an Australian site. Some who had done internships agreed that they left a lot to be desired, while others who had done them said they were a worthwhile experience. Some were internship-for-cash arrangements. A number of complaints on UK social media alleged inadequate food provided and other deficiencies.
Charging to do an internship is fee for service and, thus, a business arrangement. In Australia, that could bring it under the Trade Practices Act and its truth-in-advertising regulations. It is not the training-and-keep in return for an agreed quantity of labour arrangement of most internships.
Are interns workers?
There are other questions around internships in permaculture, and they too are legal in nature.
Would interns be regarded as workers under existing workplace legislation? This leads to the question as to whether they would be covered by workers compensation insurance, which is a legal obligation if they, legally, really are workers.
Are they self-employed contractors who cover their own workplace insurance and other costs? Would that not require a formal contractual agreement as it does in any other contracting arrangement?
Alternatively, are they visitors to permaculture establishments and small organic farms who voluntarily engage in work to cover the costs of their stay? Then, possibly, they would be covered by the establishment’s public liability insurance.
If the issues around internships lead to government regulation, these are the types of questions that will have to be answered.
Professor Andrew Stewart is co-author of the Experience or Exploitation? report commissioned by the Fair Work Ombudsman. The Ombudsmen set up a Young Workers’ Team “to investigate unpaid work and conduct a national education campaign”.
The report cites critical comments about internships benefiting those wealthy enough to do unpaid work while stranding those who cannot afford to work for free and reducing opportunities for them.
The report says:
“Many employers do unfortunately see internships as an opportunity for free and easy labour rather than a genuine opportunity to build and provide experience to new persons entering their workplace”.
It goes on to say that “interns are paying for the privilege of doing unpaid work”.
The report says that several companies have been prosecuted and ordered to hand over thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.
Formal sector a focus
The focus of the professor’s report and the interest of the Fair Work Ombudsman is on the formal sector of the economy, however the citing of the not-for-profit sector, heavily populated by NGOs, should be of interest to permaculture practitioners as it is in this field that some find volunteering opportunities.
With the Ombudsman involved in the issue, it’s not hard to imagine a time in the future that government will legislate on internships. Whether that would focus on the formal economy or whether it would be wider legislation pulling in the informal sector and smaller organisations and farms we can only guess at. If the latter, then there would likely be an impact on permaculture enterprises.
Internships in the formal economy are coming under greater scrutiny and are subject to increasing legal action, as an 1 September 2014 article on ABC News discloses. Written by Ursula Malone, the article finds unpaid internships disadvantage poorer jobseekers and that in the IT, law, media, the arts and not-for-profit sectors, entry-level jobs have been largely replaced by unpaid internships.
The Fair Work Act states that if a student is doing actual work, then there is an employment relationship so they need to be paid. We have the legisilation, more needs to be done to ensure it is adhered to — comment on ABC article.
The problem of regulation
The problem with regulating internships to address the exploitative practices of some is that those permaculture enterprises offering value-for-work arrangements could be disadvantaged along with those engaging in exploitative relationships.
Regulation can bring extra costs, and with many rural permaculture and small farm enterprises being economically marginal, the effect on them could be profound. This again raises the question of whether small farms are economically viable without free labour.
Ban it. Exploitation! — comment on ABC article.
Questions for a recurring conversation
The conversation about permaculture internships is not new. It has appeared before and will appear again. It is one of those topics that periodically resurface in permaculture circles.
Compared to other industries, internships is complicated in permaculture because permaculture is a distributed network of autonomous nodes such as small farms and other enterprises. There is no entity with the authority to make decisions for permaculture enterprises as a whole. There is no industry body such as other industries have that would require members to adhere to a set of standards for intern and volunteer workers.
Were some permaculture entity to address internships, here are some questions it could ask to get started:
- what is a fair arrangement between enterprises and interns?
- what learning opportunities and arrangements should potential interns expect?
- what constitutes a minimum standard of accommodation and food provided by the host?
- are fee-paying internships (rather than internships solely in exchange for work) a valid model and what should interns anticipate from the arrangement?
- how should internships in permaculture be monitored and by whom?
- do internships enact the third permaculture ethic of ‘share what’s spare? that is, are they a donation of spare time, energy and knowledge from intern to host? if so, is it a one-sided and fair arrangement?
- does permaculture need an online reputation system where internship providers are assessed by interns based on their experience with them, like the way Amazon features book reviews?
The latter point would recognise the actuality that permaculture already operates within a reputation economy although that is more word-of-mouth and not an online rating system.
Any helpful assessment is blocked by the lack of a structured system with preset, objective questions posed by a bona-fide, nationally recognised, non-commercial permaculture organisation which would reduce negative input based solely on interpersonal issues or emotion. It would probably be accepted within the permaculture mileau that permaculture internships should follow the win-win model for both provider and intern or customer (that is what interns are when they pay for their internship because the exchange of money makes it a fee-for-service business arrangement).
Clearly, legal advice is needed to define the rights and obligations of internship providers and interns/customers in permaculture.
The trend in growing criticism of internships, both in Australia and elsewhere, suggests that permaculture providers may not be able to continue to make up their own rules when it comes to workplace arrangements and internships. They, like other employers, are subject to various federal and state legislation affecting the legality of exchange whether that be for money or work-for-keep. Permaculture is not a bubble constituting a parallel universe of DIY workplace arrangements.
So, what do we do to keep training internships in permaculture alive and exemplary? On a previous conversation on internships in permaculture, respondents included providers who detailed their arrangements and who discussed fairness and the need to comply with permaculture’s second ethic of PeopleCare. We need to highlight these initiatives and we need to help substandard arrangements to improve their internship structure and maintain the good reputation of the permaculture design system.
Most of all, we need a code of practice that covers the rights and obligations of internship providers and interns.
Read the ABC article here: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/unpaid-internship-trend-may-penalise-poorer-job-seekers/8188976
Download a pdf file of the federal Department of Employment’s report here: https://docs.employment.gov.au/node/37506
Earlier stories about internships in permaculture:
http://pacific-edge.info/2014/09/internships-in-permaculture/
http://pacific-edge.info/2014/09/internships-in-permaculture-exploitation-or-opportunity/
