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Regulators Investigating Unpaid Internships
theodp writes "With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor. Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California, and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. 'If you're a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren't going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,' said the acting director of the US Deptartment of Labor's wage and hour division."
I believe that internships are important. I was an intern at SGI back in the late '90s, and I still frequently think back to the things I learned working there and applying those lessons to my current career.
That established, I can also say without hesitation that tech internships aren't like apprenticeships -- you're generally not learning the skills you need to do a given job, but rather applying the skills you've already amassed.
Really, the benefit of internships is twofold: You learn how to operate in an environment where you're not simply taking instructions (like you would working a job at Subway or mowing lawns or answering support calls, the typical menial jobs you can get before college) but rather participating in the job and dealing with peers, managers, HR twits, etc. Second, and related to this, you're doing it to get it on your resume, proving that you've already been through the learning curve.
So getting back to my initial point, while an intern obviously may not be as effective as a 'regular' employee, interns are still generally 'earning their keep' from Day 1 by producing value for the company.
A critical part of any internship, then, ought to be learning to value your skills, to get an idea of what your services are worth. And unpaid internship, while still better than nothing, skips this lesson, and it really is a key one -- I know people who are 15 years into their career and still unable to realize they're wasting their time in a given position or with a particular employer.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I don't see this too much in the tech industry, but I saw a lot of it going on in the entertainment industry. Los Angeles is a really creepy city that exploits innocent and not-so-wise young people who want to make it big. This is going to hit that city like a brick in the face.
Really... never understood it. I get the idea of working 'cheap' to gain experience, and I understand volunteering. I also have offered to work at some places for a short time (week or so) to get a feel for the place. But I've never understood applying to ask to be considered to be approved to then go spend months of my life working for a company which is in the business of making a profit. I guess I never travelled in those sorts of circles where unpaid internships led to high-paying positions of immense money and power, which is why so many people would be lining up to do them.
If anyone would care to engage in some unpaid internships for me, let me know.
creation science book
Unpaid internships are also an easy wayo make sure that only "the right people" (i.e., people from wealthy families) have a chance to get into certain fields. In some fields, it's hard to get hired without experience, and the only way to get the initial experience is through an internship. But there are a lot of people who can't afford to work without any income, so if only unpaid internships are available, only those lucky enough to have been born into wealth can break into those fields.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
So employers will now apply the obvious solution and pay them exactly the state's minimum wage if they're found to be violating the law with unpaid internships.
Read the article. The companies were fined a small fraction of what the intern's wages would have been. It's as if the penalty for robbing a bank was that you'd have to give back twenty percent of the take, and then, only for the times that you were actually found guilty at trial.
Such "enforcement" is worse than none at all. At least if no company were caught and "punished," there might still be the risk of real penalty in the future. Now, the companies know for a fact that IF they're caught, the penalty will only be a fraction of what they owed anyway.
Imagine if the IRS came to you and said, "If we catch you cheating on your taxes, you can be assured we'll make you pay a fifth of what you owe."
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
This is a good issue for government to investigate, as obviously interns can't exactly speak out publicly about their lack of pay without suffering a loss of employment.
Also salaried interns means more taxes for government... so there's always that incentive.
Do they even get workers comp if they get hurt? or are they not workers and just get pushed to the side?
college sports players are the same and need to be payed for playing and not taking way crap / no work fake job in the school book store / school library.
Read the article. I understand -- and my experience was -- that interns as currently used are basically workers in all but name.
However, the federal definition of an intern is that they DON'T produce value for a company. "Internships" are basically supposed to be charitable positions. Companies are supposed to be able to provide in detail the learning program of the interns they are supposed to be TEACHING, not exploiting. The company is expected to LOSE money on an internship, hence the tax breaks they're given.
The facy that most companies work interns like employees is basically half a step up from child labor, akin to a high school teacher who sleeps with one of their students the day she turns 18. Even if you manage to skirt the rules -- which really you don't -- it's still pretty repugnant.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Back when I was trying to get my first programming job, I'd have been glad to take an unpaid internship to get the experience needed for my resume to get looked at.
After a year and a half of having no job (okay, towards the end I was forced to take a job at a grocery store to pay the bills) I would have done just about anything to get a good job. I couldn't find any companies willing to take an intern or minimum wage employee to that experience. I finally landed an interview for a job that was way over my head and got the job. Luckily, I learn quickly.
As for companies abusing it... The topic of this article is why they wouldn't take interns. They said they were afraid of this very thing. Companies are in a bad position with interns. They can't use them to make money, yet they suck money from the company while the company trains them. Why the hell would a company do that?
I'd even take it a step further: If the intern isn't making the company any money, they aren't doing anything worthwhile... And if they aren't doing anything worthwhile, they aren't learning anything. Which defeats the entire point of being an intern in the first place.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
You want a healthy economy, you need jobs. Unpaid internships punish job creation. Why would company 'a' hire a person, give them a wage, when company 'b' can get a person to do the same work, for free?
Because in order to be a legally unpaid internship under US labor law there are six criteria that must be met, and the overall cant of the regulations is that legitimate internships actually constitute organizational deadweight.
Here, educate yourself: http://laborlaw.typepad.com/labor_and_employment_law_/2007/11/unpaid-internsh.html
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
You would be right if all companies followed the rules but many do not hence the article.
One of my respected professors told us flat-out that if you can get paid for work, you should— applying for internships is very counter-productive. I can see the value in certain limited fields (such as animation, mentioned in the article) if they follow the specific rules laid out for under-paid or unpaid interns, but there is absolutely no reason it should spread to the general business community. And if students become convinced that internships are necessary, well, there's a cost savings for the employer with very little benefit to the worker.
My first post-college job was a real job, and I'd had no internship experience prior to that, only good letters of reference from my professors and perhaps a dash of desperation on the part of my employer. But I'd rather work fast food than be an unpaid flunky for a job that didn't really need more than some basic training, which many of these things do. Internships should be left to those fields that demand a high level of immediate competence and inside knowledge, and the rest should be left to legitimate on-the-job training.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
I can't believe you said that stuff to that guy. All he said was it is easier for the already wealthy to take unpaid internships (which would be true), and those positions make it easier to break into the industry (which is also true). How is that redneck or racist to point out two bits of data?
Don't bother replying, I am guessing such vileness comes from being a chronic drunk, or a dry drunk who is trying to pass for sober.
If a high school student can afford all that stuff working 30 hrs/week at minimum wage, they must be spending a lot more years there than I did.