Fair enough, but I would submit such instances are extremely rare today. The vast majority of interns actaully “do stuff” that benefit the corporation as well as the intern.
I can’t speak for upper management but as far as I know we do it for altruistic reasons. In my department that was certainly the case. I only accepted interns when they showed a real interest in my field and I simply did it to help them get ahead in their career.
Many of them do just sit around like a “stump on a log”, or as my parents used to say, “a lump on a log” 
They literally follow around and observe reporters.
Things like making copies of scripts etc simply ease the burden slightly on the paid PAs. It is something that we had the manpower to do on a daily basis so there really wasn’t any added value, and I have never seen one get coffee for anyone. A reporter might ask them to make a call or two to try to set up an interview but, again, that might save the reporter 5 minutes but it would still have gotten done.
From the June 22 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Business Can Pay to Train Its Own Work Force”: “My university recently began offering grants to low-income students who otherwise can’t afford to take internships. It’s a great program, and I’m glad we have it. But it means that academe and its donors are now responsible for subsidizing profitable companies that want future employees to have work experience but don’t want to pay students for a summer’s work.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Business-Can-Pay-to-Train-Its/231015/
I agree with the ruling. I’m personally not against them so long as there is adequate legal compliance.
There are a multitude of individuals (especially students) willing to perform pro bono work for purposes of self-exploration and as a way to get their feet in the door to a particular industry or prospective employer. In many cases, they develop vital networking relationships and legitimately augment their skill set and consequent level of employability going forward.
That’s a waste of time for an intern and that is not what an internship should be at all. My daughter had internships with nonprofits during college-- one was funded by a grant from her college in combination with a small stipend from the nonprofit agency, the other was unpaid with an international UN agency – and she was very actively involved and participating in the work of the agencies, such as being assigned tasks and sitting in on important meetings.
My son was a congressional intern – supported by a stipend from a college-funded program - so “paid” but not by the government – and those interns definitely have assigned duties beyond just sitting around and watching.
Please cite a non-fantasy exampke of an intern who literally does nothing, but shadows a top executive.
I keep going back and forth on this, but I keep coming to the conclusion that I can’t think of a single good reason not to pay interns.
In the vast majority of cases, interns are performing labor. It doesn’t matter if that labor is menial; it’s still labor. It doesn’t matter if they are “learning” or “new” to the field - entry-level employees are new, and every employee learns something on the job. It doesn’t matter whether they’re getting mentored or whether their employer has altruistic motivations - employees of nonprofits get paid, right? And every employee should get mentorship from a manager or something.
I think that a distinction should be made between interning and shadowing. I don’t believe that there are hordes of interns just sitting quietly, tagging along after C-level executives, absorbing information and not lifting a finger - for weeks and weeks on end. There are probably instances in which executives of several levels do allow students to follow them on a day at work, or a couple days. But that’s shadowing, not an internship; calling it an internship is misleading. If the intern is truly not lifting a finger, they are not learning by doing (which is what an internship is about) but they are shadowing - learning by observing.
But let’s be real - bona fide interns are not flying around on anyone’s private jet, not without doing some work. Some interns are making copies and fetching coffee; that’s exploitation but it’s still work. I had a (paid) internship in grad school at a market research firm where I did far more than that - I did actual work. I learned a lot, and it helped me get the job I’m about to start in a month. But…that doesn’t negate the fact that I did work that brought value to the company that I should’ve been, and was, compensated for.
Let’s also remember that unpaid internships heavily favor the students whose families can afford for them to do them. To me, that’s not in and of itself a reason to discontinue them. Life isn’t fair, and students from wealthy families will always have more opportunities. However, it is an inequity. I only did one actual work-related internship in college (paid) because I had to feed and shelter myself over the summers, and I couldn’t afford to do an unpaid internship. I really wanted to work for the State Department, but their internships are almost all unpaid. Who can afford to put themselves (or their children) up in DC for three months and feed them?
Some people say that many companies won’t offer internships if they have to pay. And I say…that’s okay. The business who benefit from internships, or really want to have one, will find the money for it somehow.
We pay all interns. We believe it’s the law, and therefore, that’s what we do. Whether an intern is performing work of value or learning or shadowing or doing- that discussion (which folks at the manager level have frequently) isn’t germane. Our General Counsel believes that the law requires us to pay interns and so we do.
However, the reality is that our internship program is a relatively low cost arm of our recruitment process. Nothing more and nothing less. We get to make offers for permanent employment (or tag someone in our system as “someone to watch”) after actually watching them on the job and working on a couple of projects. And we offer them employment with many more data-points around their performance than just how they did on a job interview. Some of our interns demonstrate exceptional potential in a relatively short period of time- strong work ethic, learn quickly, able to translate a lot of data into a coherent picture of “what’s going on here”, etc- the kind of things you need to take on faith during the resume/interview process. Sure- someone who majored in electrical engineering at MIT with a minor in music is a hard-worker and learns quickly. But you see that person performing on an actual team with real problems and real colleagues and you can quickly figure out who you’d actually like working for YOU long term.
The notion that during a summer a kid is doing something “valuable” is quaint. During the summer they are learning (valuable for the kid) and demonstrating their “chops” (valuable from an assessment perspective for a potential employer). But they’re not doing something that we couldn’t find someone else to do- likely with less effort, handholding, etc.
Some interns aren’t given full time offers and that’s valuable also. No need to terminate them- they go back to college after their summer, and we don’t have to invest a few years in training someone whose social skills or other indicate that they’d be a poor hire.
So to me- the question isn’t are they getting coffee or collating the reports. It’s more about how effectively the company is assessing the kids potential for a long term gig.
There are several puzzling aspects to this statement, which jump out at me (I fully understand your post by the way and see how it attracts some in its reasoning). I just came away thinking, “Why?” in several places.
However:
- *Why* is it that someone else gets to decide whether a company and an unpaid intern can mutually agree to work together?
If all interns are to be paid, I agree the logical result would be a reduction in the availability of internships for students who want these internships, and companies that would like to have them. I did not need to pay any of my interns because I was the truly valuable, productive asset in the deal, not the intern - my allowing them to be around me, watch what I did, and to get to go and meet certain people across the country was infinitely more valuable training for them than anything they could ever do for me. An unpaid intern would have to work for decades to get exposed to what they did around me. The intern could not buy this insight and training and no need for me to pay for his / her presence. The interns knew this value and that is why they lined up and it was an extremely selective process.
It strikes me as odd when someone thinks he or she can be the arbiter of others’ opportunities when said opportunity has no bearing or impact on said person. If someone does not agree with or want an unpaid internship, then do not take one. But, why get into someone’s way and institute a policy to limit what he wants to do? The students wanting unpaid internships have done nothing to others, does not even know them, are not reducing any one else’s opportunities for paid internships, so I do not understand why institute a policy to reduce their opportunities.
- The concept of benefit here is completely misdirected and focused on the wrong party.
Companies would not have unpaid interns without the interns seeing a benefit from the position, not the company seeing the benefit. You are blaming the company for not paying, however, companies are not forcing students to take these unpaid positions. Students are doing these internships voluntarily and choose to spend their own capital and opportunity costs in taking those internships. Therefore, the unpaid interns clearly see the benefit to themselves, which is the centerpiece of any decision - the intern takes the unpaid position in his own self-interest of advancement.
Again, it strikes me as rather bizarre why anyone would stop someone else from advancing himself when it has no purposeful or directed negative impact on anyone else at all, especially given the fact that these unpaid internships would not exist if they were forced to be paid ones. My brain simply cannot wrap around the logic that it is a positive to reduce opportunities for anyone.
- "However, it is an inequity." So, the answer to inequity is to reduce the ability of others to improve themselves by decreasing their opportunities and limiting their ability to advance to a higher level beyond where they began?
The end result of this approach is to drive individual production towards less and personal advancement lower. Why not the goals of increased individual production and higher personal advancement for all students? That is what I think is fair to all students - teaching each student the same goal of making oneself as best as possible.
The wealth aspect, I agree with - the direct effect of taking away unpaid internships in the name of more equity is to reduce the opportunities, as you say, of some students from wealthier families who do not need a paycheck. However, is this a positive? Do people really see it as as a good thing to limit and to reduce the wealthier kids’ opportunities and limit them from being the best they can be? To do so is to drive them towards lower individual production and towards a less successful place than they could have otherwise been.
What puzzles me is not the view on wealthier students, it is the “But, why?” as they have done nothing to others and some may be the creators of some of the next greatest things, which provides thousands and thousands of jobs for the next generation. Why limit this potential? We all lose in that outcome.
Personally, I want every student, wealthy, middle, poor etc., to be the best they can be, and I see only a negative in reducing the productive output and capability of any student. Purposely reducing the output of any student (or hard-working human being, in general) is simply just plain wrong to me. Why in the world would I want to reduce the heights that any person can reach by reducing their opportunities, regardless of where they come from or their starting point? To reduce only means that the world in the future would be “less than” it could have been otherwise. I simply cannot get there logically, philosophically, or intellectually.
Thanks for your post. Obviously, I do not agree, but that is the usually the reason for a discussion, to air different sides.
It all depends how the positions written up and worded. The key often is not to assign specific duties and not to have specific productive skills qualifications as par of the internship description.
I actually agree with AWC for once which is pretty rare 
I have also decided that we have extended shadowing opportunities and not interns
Finally, it may seem like a dichotomy to support free interns but also be in favor of having, or raising, the minimum wage, but I am. In general I support Capitalism and the free-market economy. If interns want to work for free then that is their prerogative.
AWC- I am not a lawyer and I am not weighing on what other companies do. I am pointing out that any corporation of significant size has a legal department who need to decide company policy. An individual department head or division VP doesn’t get to show up at my company one day and decide he or she needs some interns, and then get to decide how to use them, and then get to decide whether or not to pay them and if so, whether it would be an entry level salary type arrangement or a stipend to cover commuting and lunch.
Guys, please. These are totally educational!
The unpaid interns learn just how awful it is to work for a company that would stoop to hiring unpaid interns!
It’s a valuable opportunity, please don’t attack it!
Uh, no. The intern description could read, ‘sits around like a lump on a log 8 hours per day’. But, if that intern gets off of the log to fetch coffee, make copies, answer a constantly ringing phone, or push a mail cart, they are doing real work, and any court would agree. The question is whether it benefits the employer enough to require payment, ala Fox Searchlight.
Its federal labor law. California labor law is similar.
So, the ‘casting couch’ is ok with you, as long as both parties “agree” to the terms?
This is a rare moment that you & I disagree.
Unlike other criminalized activities which I view as simply an agreement between consenting adults (e.g., prostitution), there’s not really mutual consent if an internship is a de facto requirement on one’s resume to get a real job.
While people can survive without sex, they cannot survive without the income from a job.
Would u also support the right of migrant field hands to offer their unpaid labor to employers as a trial run for a longer duration rig to pick lettuce at minimum wage?
Free-market consent only works equitably if both employer & employee have power. When the balance if power is very lopsided, the potential for abuse is great.
@GMTplus7 No to your first question and I agree with your send paragraph.
I understand the quandary in my answers but to me it is an issue of working to live and/or support a family versus someone who hasn’t started working yet but wants to gain experience.
That sounds so reasonable in the upper income bubble many of us live in, but many lower income kids get priced out of the unpaid internship racket because they have to earn income to either pay for college or to live. The lower income kids don’t have instutional FA, a trust fund, or mommy/daddy deep pockets to facilitate.
Of course, that means that requiring unpaid internship experience before getting a paid entry level job in the field means that people who do not have wealthy and generous families to support them during their unpaid internships are screened out of being able to pursue jobs in the field. Perhaps that is the intention in some cases.
@ucbalumnus and @GMTplus7
Since many, many (most?) internships are/would be paid the lower SES students could always turn down an unpaid internship and take paid one.