LETTER | If interns are not employees, why demand so much?

LETTER | Rashifa Aljunied is right. Interns are not free labours. And should never be.

In her recent campaign to ensure that interns, like who she will be in her coming semester, should be paid for all the work and contributions they have given to their workplaces. Unfortunately for Malaysia, such a campaign fell on devilish ears and unruly demons who only care for themselves.

Many netizens across Facebook and Twitter thought it will do a world of good for the “younger generations” and Gen-Z if they are to avoid such ridiculous demands and focus on the “historical records”, which would be to look at how interns back then had it rough yet still survived. The typical anecdotes.

Many kept forgetting that times change. The “back-then” anecdotes are good, but they lack infusion with time. An allowance of RM200 in the 2000s may be a luxury or adequacy, but certainly, it is not the case in 2023.

Prices of almost everything have risen to an all-time high, especially for food and housing. Interns who are either unpaid or underpaid may find it difficult to live especially if their internship sites are located within metropolitan areas such as Kuala Lumpur.

These are just people in their early 20s, trying to gain some experience in the working world and making a name for themselves, yet they are subjected to such torture all because the people back then had suffered the same way too.

The more disheartening sight within this entire issue would be how a lot of people suddenly turn into business or economics gurus, spouting terms such as “supply and demand”, “labour law”, and “profits and losses” whilst seemingly not understanding anything they actually talked about. 

Among the popular remarks to Rashifa’s (above) campaign would be how interns are not employees of the companies and that companies do not need interns to survive and flourish. Such arrogance.

Hiding behind technicalities as such is simply projecting the insecurities and non-creative efforts to actually make things better for the days to come. It is ironic to think that these “businesspersons” claim so as winning points. 

In the past, companies relied on university degrees to help determine able and reliable employees but since then had taken a different approach: skill sets and experience. Today, it is a different case. Universities are bowing down to the industry and keep marketing themselves as factories to produce graduates ready for any job opportunities that await.

Even with such sacrifice, companies and industry players are using skill sets and experience to further trim the possibilities, in the name of ensuring a return on investment (ROI) in any way possible.

And because of that, internships become more and more popular among students and also their respective universities. This happened considering that internships can act as the bridge between university life and the professional world, a realm ever so dearly touted among the nation’s laypersons.

To put it simply, internships came to be popular because people actually wanted to satisfy the demands of the industries, which now became more inclined towards those with the necessary skills and experiences.

Internships became a place for students to mould themselves into able industry workers before actually setting foot within the realm. This is also why many universities actually make it compulsory for students to undergo internships before graduating.

Based on this alone, how can anyone say that interns are the ones in need of the industry? Had it not been for such greed for experience and skill sets, who’s to say that internship will even remain in the eyes of the younger generation? Let alone for universities to make it compulsory?

Then, what about companies that actually exploited interns as their main workforce? Don’t they exist? We have talked to multiple people both in the physical setting and online. There are actual workplaces that only hire fewer than five permanent employees while gathering interns to perform their daily operations.

Some even masked it as their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Interns are given tasks equivalent to that of a main employee yet are compensated with meagre pay thanks to the label “intern”.

How is this more acceptable then, than Rashifa asking for interns to be compensated fairly? Why is there less stick on industry players exploiting interns but more on a young woman fighting for a better future for her generation?

If the answers to these questions are still the very same arguments we hear every day, everywhere, then our nation is surely heading towards a freefall. 

All Rashifa asked is for her generation, who are going to enter the workforce, to be compensated fairly. Sure, to ask for interns to be paid the minimum wage is a bit overkill, but do not leave them unpaid or underpaid. These are not students who come to work and return to a free hostel with free meals daily.

Some of these are people who come from less privileged backgrounds, with no transportation, and inadequate money, and had to settle for leaving their families in search of a better future. But what do they get? A worse present.

Many call them unnecessary, but why demand something that made them necessary? And if they are truly not employees, why demand so much from them?

Stop fooling ourselves, dear Malaysians. And if we keep doing so, guess who the children are now.

AMIRUL NAZMI AZRYMI and MOHAMAD SHAFIQ SAHRUDDIN are attached to the International Islamic University Malaysia.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.