Social Work Students Walkout for Internship Compensation as Part of National Movement

The Daily Californian • By Brianna Smith • March 5, 2024

“UC Berkeley Master of Social Work, or MSW, students participated in a walkout Tuesday, demanding compensation for required internship work as a part of their National Week of Action.

The Payment for Placements, or P4P, a student-led Berkeley chapter, protested at Haviland Hall and Sproul Plaza for social work students to receive payment for degree-required internships.

“The issue we’re seeing is that even though the internship practicum is a mandatory piece of the degree program, there’s no overarching structure that guarantees that those positions are paid, and many of them are not,” said signatory for the P4P Berkeley chapter, Jillian de la Torre.

About 40 students marched while holding signs that read ‘1120 Hours of unpaid labor’ and ‘Unpaid social work is unjust social work.” They cheered and chanted, “1-2-3-4 we won’t take it anymore, 5-6-7-8 social work must compensate.’”

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