Iman Usman, a cofounder of Ruangguru, clarified through his personal Twitter account that all interns were paid differently based on various factors, such as type of work, field and other things.   

Even before the Ruangguru case, the issue about the exploitative nature of companies in the country had grabbed public attention and been discussed publicly or secretly between workers’ lunch intervals or weekend hangouts where friends typically share their stories about how crazy work has been.

However, the complaints only exist within those junctures. Soon after they return to work, they will put on their “yes sir” masks again and follow their superiors’ orders. 

While regular workers are protected by some provisions in labor laws that have been revised multiple times, interns are not. In other words, there is still no comprehensive legal framework that covers the field of internship.

Take the example of Article 1(1) of Manpower Ministerial Regulation No. 6/2020 concerning the implementation of domestic internship, which defines an internship as “a part of the work training system that is being implemented under the training center and working directly under the guidance and supervision of an instructor or competent employee in the goods production process/services in a company to gain certain skill or specialty”.

The goal and parameters of gaining a skill or specialty are very obscure, it is only stated in Article 20 that the interns will obtain some sort of certification from the company. Further, the minimum requirement of the working agreement as stated in Article 10 only covers the requirement to include the rights and obligations of interns and the internship providers, the internship program, the internship period and their allowance.

There are no provisions regarding the minimum allowance, maximum working hours in a day, and other essential things. Thus, it could give companies the opportunity to exploit interns' low bargaining position and get them to agree to unfair internship agreements. Some companies even use interns to do menial tasks that are not strategic enough to act as a transition to the actual job, merely using them as short-term workhorses to catch up on big projects.

Interns in some companies are also left with uncertainties regarding whether or not their internship agreement is going to be upgraded to a permanent one. Some companies even apply a predatory policy in which they will only select a few interns that will be promoted to permanent employees, and the rest will be terminated.

On the other side, interns don’t have many options as most workplaces won’t hire people with no prior working experience. Hence, they will just submit to whatever is being offered on the table, even when it’s not appropriate.

Furthermore, the spillover effect of a “bad internship” program is bigger than it looks. Aside from the possibility that it will damage the interns mentally, it will also become a stamp of “failure” for the interns when they apply for their next job. The recruiters will take advantage of the interns’ stigma as the “eliminated ones” as another bargaining chip to make an arbitrary working agreement. 

The 2020 ministerial regulation actually includes some prospective provisions such as Article 12, which states that every internship agreement needs to be approved by the Regional Manpower Services Office. Further, the regulation provides a template of how an internship agreement should look like and what clauses need to be incorporated.

However, the problem, as always, lies in its implementation. The surveillance system still needs improvement, considering that many inadequate internship programs still exist. Further, there are still many internship providers who don’t even offer any internship agreements to their interns. When there’s an unequal bargaining position between interns and the work provider, the government needs to be the guardian to ensure the mutual benefits are distributed fairly.

Internships should be a platform for young people to learn the ins and outs of how their jobs will look like, not for them to be traumatized or question their capacity to work. The allowance is not the most important factor that needs to be adjusted, but instead the ability of the internship provider to become a good mentor for the interns.

This means not to overwork their interns or demand that their interns be ready to do tasks at abnormal working hours, balance the tasks given between routine tasks and facilitate interns to learn about how the actual job looks like, evaluate interns’ performance and give them constructive input, provide mentoring programs and many other things that don’t necessarily involve actions that might drastically exert the interns or destroy their mentality, but instead build them up.

Hardworking and being able to handle pressures are essential qualities that need to be possessed by an employee, but what needs to be fixed is the mindset that it doesn’t mean people have to suffer in order for them to climb their career ladder. A healthy mind and mental health well-being are also important factors to generate better productivity.

Building working resilience does not necessarily mean bombarding every intern with tons of work and see which one survives. Instead, the working resilience could also be built up gradually as soon as the interns make themselves more familiar with the real job description, and they will learn how to find their own way to effectively get the job done. 

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The writer is the legal counsel for a company based in Surabaya, East Java. The views expressed are personal.