From the President

Canadian Cinematographer September 2013 Vol. 5, No. 4

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Joan Hutton csc

EDITOR EMERITUS Donald Angus

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From The

PRE SIDENT

Joan Hutton csc

It is somewhat fitting that the unsavoury side of unpaid internships found its catharsis in our industry over the summer. Two unpaid interns who worked on the 2010 U.S. film Black Swan found it a less than stellar experience and sued the producers for wages. The two said they performed the same work as paid employees, provided value to the company and performed menial tasks that did not relate to their specialized training. A federal New York judge agreed with them, citing that producers violated state labour laws.

The internship summer of discontent is not limited to Americans or to our industry. In Europe, students by the thousands demonstrated against the unfair nature of internships. In Canada, numerous lawsuits have recently sprung up against corporations over their internship practices.

Ideally, interns do meaningful work alongside mentors, gaining valuable experience that translates into stellar, productive careers. This does happen, but for every success story there seems to be far more negative reports of interns running for coffee or answering telephones. Even worse, many unpaid interns are supplanting paid industry workers by misguided companies who equate internship with free labour. Now, this is all very anecdotal since there are no statistics. There are, though, plenty of news reports and harrowing personal accounts of “internships from hell” posted on Internet discussion groups. There has even been ink posted on the CSC Facebook page over a major Canadian company advertising for novice corporate cinematographers/videographers to work for free as interns in their management development program. It’s listed on the Internet as an actual job that requires nights, weekends and a car, but no compensation!

When I started in the business so long ago, it was difficult even then to break in, and those first jobs didn’t pay well. But you were paid for your labour, and you learned while you earned. Today’s system of utilizing our youth for financial gain under the guise of internship experience is exploitive. When it displaces paid workers, it’s reprehensible.

It’s estimated that at any given time in Canada there are between 100,000 to 300,000 unpaid interns working under what’s a grey area of our labour codes. In an effort to bring clarity, a private member’s bill is on the docket for parliament’s fall session. If adopted, it would force the feds to hammer out an equitable solution with the provinces for unpaid internships across Canada. British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec already have rules on the books stipulating that internships must be a form of training. I’m of the opinion that people, at great financial cost, go to colleges and universities for their training. Companies, on the other hand, are for employment, where one gets paid for their labour, even while gaining experience and learning on the job.

Black Swan grossed over $300 million. The interns who worked on it were paid $0, until they decided to bite back.