policy & reform
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exception than rule, says Professor Paula
McDonald of the QUT Business School.
At least in Australia, “the statistical relation
between work experience and employment
outcomes is quite tenuous”, she says.
So, could the micro-intern simply be a gig
economy worker, re-framed? And if so, is it
potentially exploitative?
First, I went straight to the source – Parker
Dewey – for answers to these questions.
Their spokesperson somewhat skirted
around them with the following reply: “I do
think a micro-internship and gig can be
used synonymously; however, we have
a dedicated team at Parker Dewey that
sees each project as it is posted and can
(and have) removed companies who are
not playing fairly. We require all micro-
internships posted to our platform be paid
and professional, and when approached by
a company wanting the work done at the
lowest rate possible, we explain that this
isn’t the right place for them.”
Parker Dewey also auto-subscribed me
to their e-newsletter, which contained a
befuddling mix of messages. Alongside
on-brand articles like ‘How to use Micro-
Internships to Hire the Top 10 Entry-Level
Roles’, there was this:
“Noel is a highly motivated college senior
at Texas A&M University. Though he’s
studying chemical engineering, Noel has
completed micro-internship projects like
sales outreach, lesson writing, copywriting,
prospecting and surveys.
“Post a project for Noel or thousands of
other highly motivated career launchers like
him on Parker Dewey.”
Whether the company realised it or
not, this post emphasises the potential
dissonance between gig jobs and work-
integrated learning – the basis of internships.
For this and other reasons, McDonald,
also a co-author of an Australian national
internships study, is dubious about Parker
Dewey, which seems “to have hopped
onto the internship bandwagon”. She
wonders whether the organisation, per
the definition of an internship, ensures that
companies will provide interns with learning
opportunities and adequate supervision.
Without these, they’re “not true internships,
and certainly not work-integrated learning”,
she says.
“There seem to be a lot of opportunities
for companies to take the ideas, productive
labour, knowledge and skills of so-called
interns for a very cheap price. This points to
it being gig work.”
Sarah Kaine, an associate professor at the
UTS Business School, agrees. “Internships
are meant to be work placements that
provide real and valuable experience to
students/new graduates – it is difficult to
argue that this occurs with ‘micro’ jobs of
only five hours [as suggested on Parker
Dewey’s website],” she says.
That aside, McDonald is cautious about
the possible lack of safeguards for interns.
“There’s nothing in Parker Dewey’s FAQ
section or other areas of their website on
disputes. What if a company deems an
intern’s work incomplete or unacceptable –
do they then have the authority to withhold
payment? What role does the platform have
in resolving that dispute? And, does an intern
have any claim to the benefits and protections
that other employees have; for example, ones
relating to health and safety? I assume the
intern is completely on their own.”
Kaine, a gig economy specialist, adds that
she knows of students who’ve accepted
gig jobs in the hope that they would lead
to steady employment – to no avail.
“The potential of this scenario to be
exploitative is obvious,” she says.
“While Parker Dewey suggests that these
gigs might lead to ongoing work – there is
little incentive for organisations to create
new positions if they can have their work
done cheaply by an ever-replenishing pool
of graduates or soon-to-be graduates.”
Aside from possible intern exploitation,
McDonald is concerned about what she
sees as the bigger picture: gig workers
pushing down regular employees’ wages,
and ultimately displacing them.
By way of example, a prominent media
company I interned at relied on a regular,
rotating ‘intern workforce’ to support its
day-to-day operations. Positions taken up
by interns would have otherwise been filled
by employees, or the company would have
had to reduce its output.
McDonald gave another example: she
knows of urban planning students who
worked part-time, and interned part-time, at
the same company, doing the same work
whether they came in on a Wednesday as
an intern or on a Thursday as an employee.
Regardless, the paid ‘internship’ is
preferable to unpaid internships that can
drag on for months, McDonald says.
Kaine, meanwhile, sees the paid and
structured internship as the gold standard.
“[They] are a much better option for
those trying to gain experience and also
signal that an organisation is serious about
treating its people well,” she says.
Universities, represented by their peak
body Universities Australia, would not
directly comment on gig-style internship
offerings except to say that “real-world work
experience ... helps students launch their
careers”. It also pointed Campus Review
to two Parker Dewey-style Australian
companies: Ribit and Paddl. Perhaps it was
wary of giving negative feedback as some
of its members, like Deakin University and
RMIT, use such services.
But, perhaps most importantly, what do
students think of Parker Dewey’s scheme?
Desiree Cai, 2019 National Union of
Students president, has mixed feelings.
She says more work experience options
are a good thing, as there are often not
enough to go around, and the paid element
is enticing. Yet she is against such ‘micro-
internships’ replacing the macro versions.
“They serve different purposes,” she says.
“We need both.” ■
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