Such a post hardly passes the … credibility test. Do you really believe that such as an experience – if real and not imaginary-- applies to students and young graduates?
I am afraid that you are confusing volunteering and what an internship should be all about. And, fwiw, if unpaid internships were controlled heavily or banned, don’t you think there would be more … paid one. And don’t you think that the unpaid ones thrive because misguided people believe it to be the only option to avoid idly wasting time on a couch?
@ucbalumnus, I do agree with your observation in #99. And you can add publishing - particularly in certain sectors - to the list of industries where internships are part of the way to pass those narrow gateways.
So, should McDonald’s get to have volunteers, people who get to know the job and then may or may not work there? Should Bill Gates offer internships to all the entry level positions, have people work even just a few months without pay, while they ‘try out this marriage’? No, it’s called working and they need to be paid.
You may want to do it, intern at a tv station or accounting office or medical lab to see if you like it, but it is not legal if you are actually working.
It is also illegal to have employees who are not in management positions work overtime and not be paid for it. We had some long term, highly capable paralegals on salary who just refused to write down their overtime and we had to threaten them with being fired if they didn’t. They are not exempt employees because they are supervised, don’t set their own hours, etc. and the law requires the we pay overtime. Period. The employer and employee can’t agree to just ignore the law. If the firm was ever audited, the billing sheets would show the Sally billed 10 hours for a day she only claimed 8 hours on her time card. You can’t do that, and it’s putting the employer at risk too.
twoinanddone, I am starting to understand republicans who say that overregulation is bad for economy.
As a mother, I prefer flexibility, an ability to work 6 hours one day and 10 hours another day, sometimes work on Sunday and take Monday off without any additional paperwork involved. I am not able to work 8 to 5, (just talking about myself). I feel bad for your paralegals if they have to. I don’t know why you are so proud of being an inflexible employer.
As an employee, I know that I would never ever be able to get my current job, if I would not start with volunteering / unpaid employment. I started one day a week, loved the job, took additional classes, and decided to jump into the new employment. And I am very grateful for this opportunity.
Actually, it would be very helpful! A friend’s teenage son worked for McDonalds less than a month to understand why he has to study in school. Very helpful experience. Obviously, McDonalds doesn’t want to hire teenagers, because they need lots of training. If they would “hire” teens without pay, it would be a very, very helpful experience for kids!
I hope so. For the sake of my children, I, honestly, hope so.
BTW, international students are not allowed to work (for money) if they are on student visa (restrictions apply) but can volunteer. If my husband won’t be allowed to volunteer, while he was in grad school, he won’t get a $80,000 job next day after the grad school. With the employer, that is in the same city (no relocation). For the project that he knows and likes.
Common. Give people a break. If they want to volunteer, don’t restrict them, please.
The big ** difference between volunteering and unpaid internship **is the view by both the worker and employer that the work is an “audition” or for a regular job by that employer or in that industry. I doubt that when helped out at the SPCA or at your school, both you & the school viewed the work as a dry run for a regular job.
I don’t know why think PAID interns can’t learn about their potential employer , too.
When** young people live together **as an audition for making a marriage decision, junior typically does not live off a trust fund or accumulated savings, or get mommy/daddy support him to enable him to test out living together with his GF/BF.
whenhen,
<Non profits are completely different from a for profit enterprise. Volunteering is encouraged because it is assumed that the volunteer is working towards making a better society which is one of the reasons we do not tax non profits. Monsanto and a soup kitchen are treated differently because they have completely different missions. It is in society’s interest that the non profit spend as little as possible on its staffing costs so as to improve the well being of the community. The opposite is true of a for profit.
Your internships are illegal under the second circuit’s new ruling because you’re expecting compensation at the end of the internship. You have also displaced other paid employees in the future (they were willing to offer you $40/hr) AND you were not pursuing an educational program. Any unpaid internship taken under those circumstances would fail even the loose guidelines outlined by the second circuit’s opinion (something which may be challenged).
The last thing I need, is some bureaucrat telling me that it is illegal to work for free.
Then dismantle the FLSA and perhaps the 13th amendment while you’re at it (obviously I am not comparing the horrors of the antebellum plantations to what happened at Fox Search Light). As it stands the government can absolutely tell you that it is illegal to work for free because we’ve realize how much enacting employment laws has helped to prevent the grotesque employee exploitation found in the early 20th century.
I consider internship as a pre-marriage arrangement. It is better to know your partner, to live together for some time, before marriage and kids.
Why can the employer not pay the intern for the time they “lived together”? By the way, AFAIK job shadowing is absolutely legal provided the shadower does not do any real work. The moment you’re doing the job, that is when a company must pay you. >
Looks like I broke all the rules in the universe. I am glad I was not aware of it.
What should I do, if I want to “test waters” before jumping into the new occupation? I have a nice job. I want to try something very different. I made an arrangement with my current employer to work Monday-Thursday and reserve Friday for myself. I arranged that I would volunteer in another occupation on Fridays. Very particular employer (I would not be able to relocate). If I would like working for them, if they would like my input, if they would have a job opening, I would, probably, transfer. It may not be legal, but IMHO it is ethical. I help people, for free. In return, I am learning something useful about myself. Job shadowing is ridiculous, who would take me, without experience, with marginally applicable education, if I can’t provide any value in return?
Californiaaa I am done debating you. You literally just endorsed having teens work at McDonald’s for months on end without pay since it would allow them to have a first “job”. The fact that you don’t recognize how crazy that is, that you don’t realize how horrible that would be not only for the people the teens would replace but also the teens themselves speaks volumes.
Californiaa, we were an inflexible employer, we were following the law. Most states have the rule that employers must pay overtime for more than 40 hours, and time and a half for over 48. California sets 8 hour days, unless the employer has a flexible work week (9 hour days or four 10 hour days, or nurses working 12 hour shifts are some exceptions).
You are now working in the US, and you and employers have to follow the rules. Don’t like it? Work for yourself.
I’d add that there are potentially huge liability problems for a company to have an unpaid “volunteer” on staff in the capacity of a trainee. Aside from the possibility of a class action law suit like the one that gave rise to this thread, the company has big problems if that employee gets injured on the job-- no worker’s comp coverage in that situation. The idea of a place like McDonald’s bringing unpaid, non-employees anywhere near a food preparation area like a grill is crazy.
My oldest D volunteers to work at a restaurant that belongs to a relative. I think it is a very valuable experience for her and I am grateful that he employes her (for free). It helps her to understand how business operates, helps to learn to do manual, mundane job, be professional, be helpful. IMHO, it is more useful than any “leadership” training that she had in school. Just IMHO.
Yes, there is lots of liability to accept a volunteer / intern. They are young, untrained, often immature, most likely not able to work full time. Thus, I am really grateful that some employers accept volunteers.
<californiaa, we="" were="" an="" inflexible="" employer,="" following="" the="" law.=""> Let’s hope that your employees appreciate it. You said that you had to threaten them when they worked overtime. </californiaa,>
Personally, I prefer to work for a flexible employer. For me, personally, it is very important to have flexibility in working hours. Please, don’t through a book at me. Look what happened with automotive industry, that has unions, protections, regulations, but can’t build a reasonable car. On the other hand, Google employees, at the beginning, (don’t know if it is still the case) had lots of flexibility - and they made a multimillion company, just in 20 years.
I had more than enough of socialism in my life, trust me, all these endless regulations and protection measures hurt economy.
Californiaa-- I am happy to agree with you that you personally are NOT being exploited (nor your D) in your various volunteer/internship/work for free schemes. But surely you can see that the law exists to protect people who are more vulnerable than you… who are at great risk at being exploited. Read the recent New York Time series on the mostly female employees of nail spas in the NY Metro area. They are paid below minimum wage. They are not provided safety equipment (even face masks which costs pennies) when they use dangerous chemicals which they inhale for hours at a time. Their workplaces don’t have exhaust fans, they don’t wear gloves. They are hourly employees who are not asked to clock in so they don’t get overtime, and their wages are withheld for reasons that are illegal (like taking a bathroom break, which is a right protected by law in New York State).
They can’t complain. Most of them don’t speak English and even those who are here legally often feel that these jobs are their only way to support their families. If they quit, their employment options are just another boss/arrangement which will exploit them further.
So the law exists to protect the vulnerable. You can’t operate a business and have employees showing up day after day and not getting paid the minimum wage required by law (which is not zero, i.e. volunteering).
It’s too bad that folks like you don’t get the right to “shop around” for a career which you think you might like more than the one you have. But laws don’t exist- for the most part- to protect the half of one percent of folks like you with lots of options. The law exists to protect those who have no options and no voice.
Got it?
Don’t like it, get the law changed. It’s not socialism, it’s the way to protect millions of people who are at risk of being exploited who don’t care about flexibility but who need a paycheck to keep themselves off the streets.
I work for a small, quasi-governmental non-profit, and we pay our interns well over the minimum wage. They do real work in the career area they are in school for. They are typically in Masters programs for public administration or planning. The internship has to be of value to both the student and our agency.
Am I crazy, or is Californiaa endorsing people volunteering as slaves? Unpaid labor is not a far cry from slavery. I think it’s nuts that you think labor is so worthless that it shouldn’t be compensated.
I have to add that getting paid as an intern is NOT socialism, it is pure capitalism. I have something of value to you (my labor), and you give me something of value to me in return (money).
This is a very bad trend that will be abused by both corporations and small businesses alike. It simply comes down to economics – if they can get labor for nothing they will happily oblige. And it doesn’t matter that the law puts parameters on what an intern can do and dictates who the internship must benefit – who is going to monitor and enforce that? In practice, slap the name “intern” on an unpaid employee and no one will be the wiser. And employers are already on to the fact that in many industries college age kids seem willing to work for free for the summer. Summer job listings are chock full of unpaid internships. This is just lunacy.
Unpaid internships seem to be all the rage in the tech industry and I discern many kids (my own included unfortunately) in this field consider it a badge of honor to land one for the summer. I just don’t see it that way and view it as exploitation. As a parent I am trying to teach my children financial responsibility and an understanding of their worth in the marketplace. At the end of the day with transportation costs, business attire and in some cases even housing, we are paying for our children to work for the summer. And then off they go back to school in the Fall with no summer income for spending money. I get the whole “resume builder” thing but this is just a bad deal for everyone but employers.