KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) Youth chief Arveent Kathirtchelvan has today condemned the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) president Datuk Syed Hussain Syed Husman’s statement on defending unpaid internships.

The socialist party’s youth wing chief said that while having to gain a valuable experience in a particular industry, interns still have to bear the costs of transportation, potential accommodation, food and associated cost of living.

"Furthermore, the labour these students offer does benefit their employer through whatever work completed in the duration of their internship.

"It is therefore unfair for any student undergoing industrial placement to not be compensated for this as well. In fact, it should be mandated that all interns are paid at least the minimum wage,” he said in a statement titled "MEF must realise that interns are not slaves".

Arveent said that leaving the matter to employers has clearly resulted in minimal or no allowances paid to the interns.

He further said must be thought of as repaying societal debt as the existence of profits extracted by employers is only made possible through the workers and customers from society at large instead of just seeing the internship as just a service to the students.

He added that the government should not only guarantee a minimum wage for interns, but also enact laws to ensure every student that undertakes studies with a mandatory internship requirement is guaranteed internships as well.

Earlier today, national news agency Bernama reported that MEF is against the idea of mandatory compensation for students undergoing internships in the private sector as it will discourage employers from participating in the programme.

The MEF president said instead of compelling employers to pay internship allowance, the government should consider giving more incentives to the employers to take in more interns and make it mandatory for all undergraduates to undergo internship.

Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh had said the proposal to make it compulsory to pay allowances to students who undergo industrial training in the private sector, as is done in the public sector, would be brought to the Cabinet for deliberation.

She said the Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Human Resources needed to discuss the pros and cons of implementing this in the private sector.