Technical tasks structured in eight-hour days, symbolic remuneration, lack of tutor supervision,… the rights and promotion of the youth labor market is something that has not historically accompanied the figure of interns.
“At the end of a year of internships they stopped answering me,” he explains. Susanna, a college graphic design student who did extracurricular internships to earn some money. “They asked me for the most technical work, the one that nobody wants to do,” she adds. The still undergraduate student was dedicated to creating t-shirt models, whose designs did not see the light. “It affected my self-esteem and I thought it was useless,” she laments.
The Ministry of Labor is already developing a Scholarship Statute to put an end to the abuse of this figure and that addresses aspects such as compensation for expenses, including material or transportation. “We understand that non-labour internships do not have to be paid because the objective is to train, not to produce”, he points out. Adria Junyentthe person in charge of youth of CCOO.
Currently, there are some 450,000 interns in Spain, according to a study by the union, although there is no official record in the country. “When they contribute to Social Security, there will be records,” he adds. junyent. This is precisely another of the most relevant points raised in the new statute, although it was already included in a block of the pension reform in July 2021. Currently, the maximum period of three months to which the Government to have it approved.
The CCOO union representative highlights a 2013 Eurobarometer that reveals that 60% of those who carry out non-labor practices are in fraud. “In general, there are people who carry out non-labour practices and cover structural positions, which means a lowering of the cost of workers,” adds the head of CCOO.
inigo is a 23-year-old university student who completed 350 hours of curricular internships, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. “You arrive at the company blindly to see what is coming and the tasks are often not defined,” says the computer science student from Navarra. In his case, he did not receive any type of remuneration, despite the fact that he made four daily trips on public transport, each one lasting three quarters of an hour. In his case, he had a follow-up from the tutor, although he explains that some of his classmates did not have it at all. The new ordinance also affects greater collaboration between the University and companies. “There is no continuous contact between the student and the tutors. There should be interest in what the student is doing beyond the end of the evaluation,” he says. Eduardo Magaldispokesperson for RUGE-Ugetista Revolution.
Another study carried out by RUGE denounces that the non-labour practices of the youngest replace some 300,000 jobs. “There are templates in which 70% are interns”, describes Magaldi. Therefore, another aspect specified in the draft is to limit the number of these according to the size of the company. In general, there may be from one intern in companies with up to 10 employees, up to 5% of the workforce in companies with more than 60 workers.
“The Scholarship Holder’s Statute is a catalog of rights, such as maximum hours or the right to vacations”, he explains Nicholas Hernandezpresident of the Coordinator of Student Representatives of Public Universities (CREUP).
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The Ministry of Labor convened the first social dialogue table to regulate the statute on April 22 and plans to send the final draft to the Council of Ministers “at the end of the month”, indicates junyent. However, fringes remain to be resolved. For there to be an agreement, the unions see it as “basic” that extracurriculars, alternatives to the study plan, be eliminated. “It is decisive because it is where the greatest fraud occurs, as it is deregulated,” adds CCOO. Other proposals would be economic sanctions of between 5,000 and 10,000 euros for companies that have interns who carry out a job, allowing them to miss internships to go to the doctor, extrapolating the transport service to students or expanding inspection capacity. Some of the changes are at the expense of whether it is finally processed as a regulation or as a law.
Although, the most important thing according to the sources, is to guarantee a good training during the period in which the students are in the companies because otherwise “the rest of the points will not be of any use”.