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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 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.
Some people even go as far to pay for education. And the best education is on the job training. Not to mention rubbing elbows with other people in the field.
I think it is a horrible practice and that any work needs to be compensated but I at least see the reasoning behind it.
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."
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."
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.