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Federal Judge Says Interns Should Be Paid
An anonymous reader writes "Student interns are typically relegated to menial tasks like fetching coffee and taking out the trash, the idea being that they get paid in experience instead of money. On Tuesday, Manhattan Federal District Court Judge William H. Pauley disagreed, ruling in favor of two interns who sued Fox Searchlight Pictures to be paid for their work on the 2010 film Black Swan. The interns did chores that otherwise would have been performed by paid employees. Pauley ruled, in accordance with criteria laid out by the U.S. Department of Labor, that unpaid internships should be educational in nature and specifically structured to the benefit of the intern, and reasoned that if interns are going to do grunt work like regular employees, then they should be paid like regular employees."
The article seems to imply that this might be the beginning of the end for the rampant abuse of unpaid internships: "Judge Pauley rejected the argument made by many companies to adopt a 'primary benefit test' to determine whether an intern should be paid, specifically whether 'the internship’s benefits to the intern outweigh the benefits to the engaging entity.' Judge Pauley wrote that such a test would be too subjective and unpredictable."
If you have to pay interns like regular employees, what's the point of hiring interns?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
If interns have to get paid, there goes Hollywood, Print, and Radio media industries... Interns pretty much do everything these days.
How about laying off some lazy fat management types to free up some money?
Unpaid internships are a huge crutch perpetuating class divisions here in the US. I wonder what will change now that rich kids no longer have the advantage of being able to say "I'll work for free."
An internship should clearly be:
- For a well-defined project;
- For a limited time;
- Paid (at a basic level);
- As much work for the employer as it is for the intern.
If you're not mentoring your interns heavily, you stand no chance of developing a talent pipeline. I wrote about my experiences with an internship program here: http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/04/18/lessons-learned-from-training-interns/
The critical aspect is that you have to have the available bandwidth to mentor and supervise an intern. You have to give them clear goals and a clear chance to succeed.
We have learned the lessons of Kramerica and intern abuse.
Boohoo. Companies can't exploit as many people anymore! The horror!
Unpaid internships have always been very restricted according to labor laws. It has always been the case that many companies in the entertainment and publishing and fashion industries were breaking the law. What is new is simply that a few former interns got fed up enough with their treatment that they are ratting out their unethical non-employers ;-)
This just in: corporate whore roman_mir is butthurt over ruling that doesn't kiss the ass of Corporate America.
Film at 11.
I can't comment on specifics, as I've never done an internship, but my impression is that the theory is to get the intern a little bit of exposure to the field they are trying to get into, with the byproduct of some internships leading to legitimate jobs or networking with those they interned with. However, if the internships are being used as an excuse to use these interns as nothing but grunt workers for tasks completely unrelated to their field, it seems the exercise is a waste on any but a networking level, and even then, they'd be cultivating contacts whom they will just resent anyway.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
permatemps, contractors and so on are just other ways to get work for free / low cost and in the case of some contractors like fedex make them pay the costs of your business.
"Fine. Here's $5000. Now remove from your resume that you interned on Black Swan ."
you know what sounds better than interned? that they worked on the black swan. beats interning any day of the week.
but the real point is that they'll have to start thinking about their internship policies and practices..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Minimum wage is so low that any company who wants to grow their own talent can pay it painlessly.
The skilled trades, unlike various Elitist Fuck Corporations, pay their apprentices because otherwise said apprentices wouldn't be able to have food, clothing and shelter.Internships/apprenticeships are increasing as they are the (proven over CENTURIES) way to grow skilled tradespeople.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
some schools make you pay for the credits so work for free and pay to get credit for it.
good enough does not work for office boy interns where they don't even do real work / do stuff they are not going to school for.
Need apprenticeships with real training in the IT / field.
I worked as an "intern" for 16 months for a telecom provider, and got what I considered to be a decent wage for it. (About 3/5 the starting wage for a fresh-out-of-school programmer at that company).
If someone wants to volunteer for a position on their own time, then that's okay--but that's not what I'd call an internship position, and the system shouldn't be set up to have people needing to volunteer full-time.
Sure, but now they get to add that they worked on Black Swan (and got paid for it) instead of just interned. Oh, wait. Now that they've been paid to work on Black Swan, they'll sue for not being credited for it.
Not it doesn't. When I was 18 and 19 I had internships for a couple summers. I got minimum wage. That isn't going to break anybody. They just need to stick a crow-bar in their wallets. Come on! You're telling me that even $10/hr is going to raise the price of a ticket so much that it'll kill the biz? How many people could you hire at minimum wage for just 0.1% of Sony's revenue of $22.4 billion in Q4 2012? Ballpark, I get about 11,000 people.
Regardless of the outcome, there are now 2 interns who need to find a new career path, because they'll never work in that town again. Hollywood holds grudges, forever...
Leapfrog Technology Group abuses interns
Here is the job add with some added mark up
Fun points are up 3 months full time with no pay
and they have the balls to say "This means that if you don't believe there is any value to 12 weeks of unpaid on the job training, then this opportunity is not for you. We're looking for those individuals with long term aspirations in mind, not someone simply looking for a paycheck."
added mark up start with --
What is an Information Technology Internship?
An IT Internship is both an educational experience and a potential full time job after completion.
An IT Internship teaches students how to apply existing skills to real-world environments.
An IT Internship gives students the opportunity to learn new skills to better prepare for the competitive job market after graduation.
An IT Internship offers a variety of positions in at various types of organizations.
--point 4 is part of payed jobs
We offer internships to highly motivated individuals who want to enhance their IT exposure while working for a technology company focused on consulting and managed IT support. Our IT operations are located both in Chicago's Loop. We are currently seeking two interns to assist with our outsourced support program for our client located in the Chicagoland area.
Desired Experience
1 - 2 years --For a Work for free job?
Desired Education
High School or higher --OK
Desired Technical Skills
Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Remote Access, Remote Desktop, Active Directory Administration, Basic Group Policy. --ok
Desired Soft Skills
Additional third party application skills and network infrastructure a plus. Ability to heavily multitask, excellent written and verbal skills, ability to understand business concepts and operations, independent worker, punctual, professional, asks detailed questions.
Must enhance skills on their own time when necessary at home or in office. --so not only is this work for free it's work off the clock at home as well?
Job Description and Career Opportunity
Throughout the course of each day, Leapfrog Technology Group delivers the absolute highest quality and most reliable technical support and network design\implementation services to small and medium organizations between 5 to 150 computers with one or more servers. Leapfrog is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the Midwest Region, focusing on network infrastructure, advanced network infrastructure and managed services. Established in 2002, the company employs a small group of highly capable senior engineers focused on providing IT strategy and ongoing operational support.
We are currently seeking candidates through our Campus Relations Program for our Information Technology Development Program. This program provides challenging assignments and exceptional growth opportunities. In your role as a Help Desk Analyst, you will expand your skill set by providing prompt and effective support for our clients technical needs. Additionally, Leapfrog has a web design division, provides hardware\software sales, provides project management services, and in this role, additional non technical skills will be developed. This internship requires heavy multitasking, use of technology software to ease the burden on the support specialist, and is extremely challenging. Even for seasoned IT professionals, a role as an IT consultant is a very challenging one. We believe that this will be a position in which the staff is held to the highest standards and will be held accountable to use Leapfrog's proven methodologies.
Must have the following qualities:
Business savvy: You are smart and you understand the business implications of your ideas. You are successful in translating classroom training into workplace solutions.
Results focused: You always give it your best but you're not satisfied until you've acco
All this means is that there will be fewer internships, thus fewer opportunities for unskilled students (or otherwise) to gain experience. Keep in mind that these students are working of their own free will.
So what?
No, really, think about your answer.
Eliminate this unethical source of free entry-level labor, and young people looking for first jobs will be competing against what level of experience?
If interns have to get paid, there goes Hollywood, Print, and Radio media industries... Interns pretty much do everything these days.
How about laying off some lazy fat management types to free up some money?
Exactly, like the GP said, there go the movie, print, and radio industries. Nothing anyone can do about it now but wait for the sweet embrace of death.
Wait, Hollywood would go belly-up? And we're complaining about this?
The interns where I work have more perks, do less work, can leave any time they want, have unfettered access to just about anyone in the company AND get paid... often more than I do. They don't get benefits like heath insurance though... so there's that.
I don't get why internships were ever unpaid in the first place. In the course of training someone to do the job they are interning for, they end up providing some form of valuable work, even if it is at a lower level of effectiveness/efficiency than a highly-skilled employee. As an engineer, I have the good fortune of being in a field where internships are almost universally paid, and paid well for that matter. (Many engineering internships run from double to triple minimum wage.) Even my most basic intern experience (which is barely considered "engineering" by my standards) paid over double minimum wage (back in 2006). I can't fathom a sort of situation where an intern provides absolutely no useful work. Can anyone provide an example?
(((dB)))
so, why should work be any different?
In USA the internship is the only way for somebody to enter the labour force and actually learn on a job that they could not otherwise land most likely.
You are so right. An internship is for actually learning on a job. Doing grunt work and fetching coffee is not learning. It's working simple tasks. And work has to be paid.
Funny how high minimum wages and "socialism" to a degree much greater than in the US hasn't eradicated Germany's very popular system of apprenticeship.
And first-world countries that do not have minimum wage set by law tend to have minimum wage worked out in collective bargaining between a union and management (which then applies to all employees, union or non-union). Do you think that that would lower wages?
Working there of their own free will, so that they can gain experience, so that they can get a leg up when it comes time for applying for an Entry-level / Junior job, which they will not get, since it's more cost-effective to use free interns than what is now an 'expensive' employee.
See, a typical company has numerous regular employees, and takes on a handful of interns during the summer / other times. These positions used to be paid; they weren't paid well, compared to when the person actually graduated, but then, they weren't being paid much, and interns were closer to observer status than the backbone of the company. The only organizations who really ran with the unpaid internships were the peace / welfare / non-profit types, who would argue that they couldn't afford it, etc., etc., and people let them go with that because of morality.
Anyway, between the dotcom crash, the housing market crash, and so on, the market is getting so bad, that the business types, who occasionally need a reminder from their fore-bearers why certain lines are not crossed, decided to cross another line. "The market is bad, so all internships will now be unpaid" -> every-time the market takes a dip, a business type will try and cut something; it's almost like a play, and shows that their business is not being run well enough to weather the darker times. Anyway, like all bad ideas, it catches on; soon college students are spending their parent's money to drive to and from unpaid internships, on the gamble that it will all work out in the long run if they put the effort in. Between the rising cost of gas, rising cost of tuition, and senior-level positions being marketed as entry-level positions, they're rolling in debt, and the entire edifice is collapsing on itself.
But the real problem? The real problem, from a business perspective, is this. Suppose I have a company with 12 regular employees, and I pick up 3 paid interns. My rival has a company with 3 regular employees, and 12 unpaid interns. From a strictly fiscal aspect, he's probably going to be more cost-effective than I am. So I downsize all but 3 of my regular employees, and bring on 24 unpaid interns. He responds by firing all but one of his regular employees, and bringing on 36 unpaid interns. He's probably still winning, from a cost effective standpoint...but chances are, neither of our companies are producing much, the quality is going to be very variable, and the market is looking in horror at what has been created -> an incredibly unstable company, where the employees have little reason to be there, can leave in a heartbeat, and so on. The unpaid internship, like email spam and the old registrar's policy of 'trying a domain name for a month before paying for it,' has been abused; any company that cannot afford to pay for an internship (which rarely exceeds, what, the teens in terms of renumeration per hour?) is probably on shaky ground to begin with.
I am John Hurt.
If those industries cannot survive without a large pool of free labor, then they should go the way of the dodo.
Wrong. There is still the same work that needs to be done, and companies will still have it done whether it's done with free or cheap(er) labor. And if there are ones eliminated, those are probably the ones who are just getting coffee and other menial, non-educational tasks - the ones that should be eliminated anyway.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
Of course people should get paid if they were promised an internship but end up doing menial labor. But they have a simple solution: they can just walk away from their unpaid internship without losing anything. If you voluntarily stay in an unpaid internship, presumably you are getting something out of it.
The insidious effect of this rule will be to place organizations providing good unpaid internships at a much higher legal risk, because the organizations that provide them now have to worry about getting dragged into court by a disgruntled intern for back pay. That not only means they are going to be less likely to have interns in the first place, it also means that interns who can't clearly contribute at a high level from day one have to be kicked out right away.
All this means is that there will be fewer internships, thus fewer opportunities for unskilled students (or otherwise) to gain experience. Keep in mind that these students are working of their own free will.
There will be fewer internships, because the crappy worthless ones will be axed. There will not be fewer opportunities for students to gain experience, because the genuine internships — the ones that are not-for-business-gain and the ones that are for business gain, but paid — will continue. So there will be just as much experience gained, although there will be fewer internships on CVs. Which will not only stop the exploitation, but it will make having an internship on your CV more attractive to potential employers, because it will now say you have actual real experience in something more useful than running down to the local store for a box of donuts and a 6 pack of Mountain Dew....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You used to be free to die in the gutter. You used to be free to breathe asbestos on the job. You used to be free to be raped by the sweat shop owner.
These regulations exist for good reason. I am offering a free one way trip to Somalia so you can check out the alternative. As part of my education for slashdot libertarians program I do require a refund if you ever leave Somalia.
This ruling well have exactly zero effect on internships. There will be the same number of students gaining valuable experience and knowledge from companies through interning as before this ruling.
What it will do is seriously curtail the number of companies who fail to pay employees they choose to call interns, but are not. Unless you are interning at a Starbucks, getting coffee for people provides no benefit to the intern, and is, and has been, illegal.
This is not a judge revising the law. This is a judge finally applying the guidelines that define an internship to companies that have abused them for years.
It is a fact that the person in question has interned on Black Swan. What you offer is a new contract with a Non Disclosure Agreement. It might not be cheap.
For my degree, I needed intern experience in order to graduate.
There were two stipulations --
1: it be related to my major
2: it is paid
As a student, I felt like I was making lots of money (because my previous work was the sort that didn't even require a high school diploma), but to the company, student labor is still ridiculously cheap. If a company can't afford to pay their interns, then they have no business hiring them.
Go to the Prison-Industrial Complex, pay them a low fee, and get your labor for next to nothing (or free).
This has been about the only growth industry in the US for decades.
This is very appealing to Red states as it gets them a good chunk of money both over and under the table whilst also satisfying their twisted Purtianical sadism fetishes. The fact that most of the sla^H^H^H workers are minorities is just gravy.
Very related: for-profit prison companies are now lobbying if not outright writing ever more laws with prison sentences as it directly increases their profits. Greed and sick, religion-driven punishment fantasies are the twin reasons the US has more citizens imprisoned percentage-wise than anywhere else.
Soon there will be no tools left. What are we supposed to exploit the desperate with then? Help?
I once offered Blizzard $1000 to be an intern at a time when I was desperate to have experience on my resume. I would have been glad if they accepted too. It is hard to get your foot in the door in the video game programming/design industry.
God spoke to me
you're an idiot.
this doesnt stop unpaid internships.
RTFA.
this stops unpaid interns being used as free labor for activites that cannot be considered educational or relevant to the entire point of the internship. two film school students being given an internship on a movie and being used as unpaid labor instead of being TAUGHT THINGS. that is the sort of thing being stopped. not unpaid internships as a whole, but those which are simply trying to get free labor and not fulfilling the educational requirement.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If you want to work for free then work for a charity or relatives and not some dipshit that hasn't got the message about slavery yet.
the one and only purpose of interning is to have the opportunity to shine. It's difficult to get hired as an employee -- there's a lot to prove and a lot of competition. It's way easier as an intern. And it's the foot in the door. You do have the opportunity to do really well, get noticed, and eventually get hired. And all you need to do is to work for free until that happens. That's pretty swell.
once again i almost agreed with you. then, once again, you had to throw in antoher ignorant libertarian remark. you still dont have a damn clue what you're talking about when it comes to that.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Note I stated "Slashdot Libertarian".
I have plenty of experience with those nuts.
Aha, but nobody can force an intern to do a job he doesn't want to do. Going to court because as an intern you agreed to do some things that you think weren't teaching you anything you didn't know.... well, if the court takes your side, then eventually there will be no more internships because it's arbitrary what teaches you to do something vs. something that doesn't teach you anything?
No, no one can. At the same time, the intern can sue for the company violating the law. But laws don't apply to corporations, right? To hold them accountable to anything is tantamount to communism, right?
I ran a company for quite a few years. The summer students I had were paid something, but I have to say that the assumption that employers are getting something for nothing is simply ridiculous. I had to do background checks before allowing them access to my business assets. I had to supply them with desk-space, a computer, a phone. I had to assign someone to train and then to supervise them. Most of their "work" was them learning to do the job. I had a couple who worked out really well, but most were revenue-neutral at best. The last few years I ended up not doing it even when kids begged to work for me for nothing. I would liken it to the opportunities available in international aid. Kids go off and volunteer at orphanages in India or whatever. These days, NGOs usually charge their volunteers a fee in exchange for the opportunity. They have figured out that, in the end, it _costs_ them money to host volunteers.
And no, I would never work for or deal with a business operated by you, where I have to fear to be mistreated, betrayed or otherwise illegally dealt with because you don't want to have the Law have a say how you handle people.
If you have to pay interns like regular employees, what's the point of hiring interns?
I don't know, maybe to educate them? What a concept!
Interns aren't supposed to be doing the work of regular employees. If they are doing the work of regular employees then they ARE regular employees and should be paid as such. An internship isn't supposed to be a loophole to acquire free labor.
Only if they lay off the idiot types like you.
Nice reply boss, I didn't know you read slashdot.
They should be honored for the privilege of getting us our coffee.
But what if their work is not realistically worth even the minimum wage to the employer?
If it isn't worth even minimum wage then it probably isn't very important is it? Recognize the internship for what it is supposed to be which is an educational opportunity. An internship isn't supposed to be a way for companies to skirt minimum wage laws and get free labor.
You used to be free to decide for yourself whether to take an unpaid internship.
Well, yes, sort of. But the employer is not free to hire employees without paying them. This particular form of employee abuse has been illegal in the US since 1938 ;-)
"In USA the internship is the only way for somebody to enter the labour force and actually learn on a job"
The judge ruled that the internship in question did not allow the interns to "learn on a job." Therefore, it is not an internship and must be paid. You've misinterpreted the article to a stunning degree. Either you're a truly stupid fuck, or you're such a belligerent asshole that you're willing to ignore the article's content completely for an opportunity to bitch about "socialism" and "encroachment."
Unemployment? You dumb motherfucker. Do you know why unemployment is bad? Because it means people can't get paid. Do you know why fraudulent internships are bad? Because it means people can't get paid.
In USA the internship is the only way for somebody to enter the labour force and actually learn on a job that they could not otherwise land most likely.
In the USA, the internship is the only way to make certain professions near-exclusive to the progeny of the wealthy. Who else could afford to work unpaid for such an extended period?
The minimum wage laws and the socialist State agenda already made it impossible for people to take very low paid position only to be apprentices, so apprenticeship is dead in America because of the minimum wage.
Bullshit. Skilled trades apprentices are paid up here in Canada* and apprenticeship programs are alive and well here, mostly under a cooperative education model around here. I have some other suggestions on possible causes for the decline of apprenticeship in the USA.
*In this province, the pay for a new apprentice in any Red Seal trade is minimum wage or 40% of the wage paid to a 1st year journeyperson, whichever is greater. This percentage increases over the term of apprenticeship (the scale varies by trade), reaching 90% near the end of the term. For example, an apprentice welder starts at 40%, and it increases by 10% for every 900 hours (~6 months) worked, hitting 90% for the last 6 months of the 3 year apprenticeship term, at which point they take their exam.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
They do that! At every opportunity! Eliminating everyone who makes more than minimum wage aside from the few oligarchs is EXACTLY what the oligarchs would prefer. That's why the middle class is being eliminated. It's a lot easier to live like a king when there are fewer nobles running around.
Not at the college level, but I've heard from similar things at the High School level where they're expected to work for experience rather than pay.
IIRC, the local ski-hill often utilized unpaid high-school students in the capacity, but at least they often get free lift passes out of it. Other businesses offered little to nothing. It may be different now, but back in the day you were expected to be unpaid.
I think this is currently a similar program.
Also see here
Adapt, or DIE.
If it makes you feel better, you're an exception to the rule and unpaid internships do far more harm than good overall. Without this institution maybe it would have been easier for you to get a job just by showing experience and skill, unpaid internships contribute to the "job requirement inflation" that has made a Bachelor's degree the new high school diploma and wants everyone to have 5 years' experience.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I think if this guy's hands were flapping any faster, he'd take off like a bird.
Don't you normally work out your job responsibilities and payment BEFORE you start, not in some court case afterwards?
If they agreed to work for nothing, how do they have ground to sue, specifically when it is widely known that their job would involve exactly what it involved, grunt work, coffee gettins, and trash removal.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The system shouldn't be set up to essentially require people to volunteer in order to get experience...but it's basically impossible to prevent people from volunteering _should they so choose_.
An "internship" to me is a paid position for someone who is still in training and is therefore not ready to be hired as a permanent employee.
Pro driving is another one. There are two ways in: Win a national karting championship before you hit puberty (requires Daddy's Mad Money), or pay a 5-digit sum for "pay-to-play" racing and hope you get noticed.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
From TFS:
Pauley ruled, in accordance with criteria laid out by the U.S. Department of Labor, that unpaid internships should be educational in nature and specifically structured to the benefit of the intern, and reasoned that if interns are going to do grunt work like regular employees, then they should be paid like regular employees."
All this judge did was rule in accordance to existing law - that interns are there to be taught the tricks of the trade, not be your goddamn coffee mule, and if you're going to utilize them as such, they must be paid for their efforts (and rightfully so).
For fuck's sake, guys, learn to read at least the damn summary before you go off on a nonsensical tangent; perhaps you'll learn to think better of it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
"Student interns are typically relegated to menial tasks like fetching coffee and taking out the trash, the idea being that they get paid in experience instead of money."
Really? I've worked with a lot of interns and I don't remember having any of them doing this. You may consider working on a small website nobody has time for 'taking out the trash', but I don't think that is what the OP intended.
love is just extroverted narcissism
One-off stuff is fine, that's called volunteering.
How in holy hell is this a troll? It distills the essence of the issue. You're either an intern so you can brag about on your resume or you are a low-paid lackey.. You can't be both.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Someone above mentioned a credit card and another one mentioned living with their mother who was hardly wealthy. Both weren't wealthy and managed to do unpaid internships. Perhaps you should leave your speculation to countries you know about? One needn't be wealthy to do this, one needs to be diligent and willing to take risks, sure, but one needn't be wealthy. Even if that were the case, and it isn't, why would it matter?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Nah, I actually support this judge's decision. It makes perfect sense to me and it follows the letter (and spirit) of the law quite nicely.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Re-read the summary and the ruling. This isn't going to end unpaid internships.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Have you read the thread? The article? Have you read the decision? It would appear that you have not. You can still do those things. The reason THIS one was unacceptable was because they didn't do anything education and only did menial tasks that should have been paid labor.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I recall you as one of the people who insists that copying is stealing. You vehemently denounce piracy, saying that artists deserve to be paid, and people who just make a copy without paying are cheating the artists. Pirates are not paying for the labor, the hard work artists put into the creation of their works, and are therefore allegedly making it impossible to earn a living from art.
But interns? If artists deserve compensation for labor, and not just once, but each time their work is used, surely interns deserve some pay for their labor, just once?
How do you justify what seems to me to be a huge double standard?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
AFAIC as an employer I wouldn't want to hire anybody that brings up a lawsuit against their employers, which is why I wouldn't hire anybody in USA (and most other Western countries).
1. Thank you, as an American I wouldn't have it any other way.
2. They're not suing their employer, because you're not employed if you don't get paid.
He thinks that corporations should be able to do whatever they want without constraint. He's nothing but a corporate whore.
Scotsmen aint got nothin on True Libertarians....
Because for-profit ventures didn't exist before or independently of central governments looooong before Randians existed. Because Standard Oil wasn't an abuse monopoly during the Randian Golden Age of post Civil War to WWI. Because Monsanto and Lockheed Martin would fold up shop tomorrow if everyone went Galt and world governments disappeared.
Because you guys are freaking Loony Tunes.
Shorter version of your post: Anywhere that doesn't regulate voluntary internships is like Somalia. And not learning at your voluntary internship is like being raped.
In politics what Monica did was relevant job experience. Politicians do it to their campaign contributors all the time.
'the database'? WTF? Of course the intern doesn't work on a live database.
The intern may download a free database engine and install it on their personal laptop. He/she may then frolick/wallow in the database with admin rights and can ask questions of experts while fetching their coffee. Perhaps the expert will allow them to install a real world database on their laptop as further education.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That may be true. But in a free society, they would have been paid exactly what they contracted for before they started the internship. The rights of the two parties to the contract would have had some significance, and a court would not come in later and overturn an agreement between two free people who voluntarily entered an agreement for legal activities.
The problem with "free society" is the same problem as deregulation. People want a society free of government control without appreciation for the massive differences in bargaining power between people and corporations. In a truly free society there would be no minimum wages and everyone would be working for peanuts. I say this as someone who often has unemployed mature aged people come past my small shop front looking for work and offering to take on the same pay as some 15 year old, which is approximately half their minimum wage. It's a race to the bottom.
Fortunately we don't live in a truly free society and a dramatically one sided contract is in legal terms "an unconscionable contract" and thus not enforceable, and if one side of the contract had already been fulfilled the legal system offers recourse to ensure both sides are treated fairly.
I could sell you my house for $1. And I could also take you to court and likely get my house back (with legal expenses though so don't treat this as a literal example).
The article seems to imply that this might be the beginning of the end for the rampant abuse of unpaid internships.
Nice summary. Obviously the OP has never heard of a good internship experience.
All this means is that there will be fewer internships, thus fewer opportunities for unskilled students (or otherwise) to gain experience doing unskilled work for free.
FTFY
Sounds like all the stories out of EA. Everyone wants to be a game dev. So with the popularity of the job, comes the exploitation of the worker.
Because it is the lazy fat management types to do the laying off of course...
When the org structure of the place you work at starts to look like an upside down pyramid, things have gone awry.
Imagine a place like Innotech from Office Space where the reason you have 8 bosses, is because management actually outnumbers workers. As a worker, looking at management layoffs of workers in this regard, sometimes wonder, "OK who is going to do all the actual work now? Management?"