Internship Law and fundamental labor rights:

material conformity, minimum protection and precarization risks

Abstract

This paper critically examines Brazil’s Internship Law (Law No. 11,788/2008) through the lens of fundamental rights, with emphasis on fundamental labor rights and the constitutional protection of work. It assumes that internships are legitimate when they preserve a genuinely educational and supervised purpose, yet they may become a driver of precarization when distorted to meet permanent productive needs at lower cost and reduced safeguards. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative legal-dogmatic approach, combining bibliographic and documentary research and applying systematic and teleological interpretation to assess the internship regime’s compatibility with constitutional standards of dignity, equality, health and protection of work. The findings argue that the statutory exclusion of an employment bond does not justify a zone of underprotection: even if the full set of labor-law rules does not apply, internships remain subject to a minimum core of fundamental rights in the workplace, requiring integrity safeguards, non-discrimination, working-time arrangements compatible with student status, and effective supervision. The paper proposes “material conformity” criteria to differentiate lawful internships from distortions, highlighting pedagogical alignment of tasks, real supervision, reasonable time allocation and the prohibition of structural replacement of regular jobs by interns. It concludes that internship effectiveness depends on material oversight and shared accountability between host organizations and educational institutions, ensuring professional training with dignity.