A group of unpaid interns in the New York City Council launched a campaign this week to pressure the council to pay all of its interns – and one intern spearheading the campaign was abruptly fired shortly after.
Mina Farahmand, a recent graduate of New York University, began working as an unpaid intern for New York City Council Member Harvey Epstein, the chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. Her internship started on May 19 and was supposed to last through the end of July.
This week, Farahmand and 31 other interns sent a petition to Speaker Julie Menin calling for the creation of a dedicated intern fund as part of this year’s city budget, to ensure that all interns receive a living wage of $32 per hour and benefits like health insurance.
On Monday, Farahamand and other interns attended the Youth Civic Summit, where Menin was a featured speaker. During the Q&A section, Farahmand made a passionate case for the City Council paying interns. As Menin left the event, Farahmand stopped her to personally make the case for a dedicated intern fund. She and other interns also posted about the petition on a dedicated @nyccouncilinterns Instagram account and left comments under Menin’s posts asking her to support paying interns. Farahmand said Menin seemed open to the idea but noncommittal.
“The Speaker’s office was already reviewing policies for internships within Council Member offices and those conversations are ongoing,” a spokesperson for Menin told City & State.
Council internships are currently a hodgepodge of formal internship programs (funded through outside grants or the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program), paid fellowships, and what are effectively volunteer opportunities that pay in college credit.
The City Council’s central staff has a formal internship program that pays $32 per hour. But interns also work for individual council members’ offices and for legislative caucuses like the Progressive Caucus, and it’s up to those offices whether and how much they want to pay interns. Some members only employ one or two interns and pay them out of their office’s staff budget, treating them like actual part-time employees. Others employ more than 20 unpaid interns, happy to take advantage of the free labor. The upshot is that some interns get paid while others receive work for free, despite doing essentially the same work.
Farahamand believes that is unfair and disadvantages working-class youth interested in public service. “They have been unable to eat lunch while at the district office, because they’re not getting paid. They’ve gone into debt to do public transportation to the district office,” she said. “New York City is the biggest employer in our city – they’re refusing to pay predominantly working-class youth who are going hungry, who are going into debt, whose bank accounts are hitting zero.”
On Wednesday, according to Farahmand, a top staffer for Epstein’s office asked to speak with her privately and informed her this would be her last day as a “volunteer” in the office. Farahmand sees this as a clear-cut example of retaliation and said other interns have been less willing to speak out publicly in support of the petition following her termination.
Epstein told City & State he didn’t hear about Farahmand’s termination until after it happened, but he’s trying to get more information about what happened from his staff. A spokesperson for Menin said no one from the speaker’s office spoke to Epstein about Farahmand or had any prior knowledge of her termination.
The Association of Legislative Employees,a union representing City Council staffers, expressed concern about Farahmand’s termination, even though it doesn’t formally represent interns.
“ALE stands in solidarity with all workers, regardless of whether they are interns or full-time staff,” the ALE executive board said in a statement. “Organizing for dignity, fairness, and respect will always be our top priority.”
Farahmand plans to continue organizing, despite being fired. “Union-busting doesn’t make organizing go away,” she said. “We’re going to keep fighting for our rights and to be seen as staffers of the City Council.”
