<p>A young Wesleyan graduate and a middle-aged M.B.A. from Case-Western realized: it's great to work within a mile of Natalie Portman. But it doesn't pay the rent.</p>
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The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that Fox Searchlight Pictures, the producer of Black Swan, had the interns do menial work that should have been done by paid employees and did not provide them with the type of educational experience that labor rules require in order to exempt employers from paying interns.
<p>This practice should be investigated with great attention by our legislators. At the risk of making a political commentary on an education issue, it is surprising that an administration that pretends to support students, that pretends to have a commitment to job creation, and be determined to raise taxes with more equity has ignored this growing cancer. </p>
<p>How long before every waiter and waitress will be considered an intern?</p>
<p>Actually, NYS has BEEN pursuing the issue of unpaid internships for other than non-profits. </p>
<p>As to waitresses, etc, many states have different minimmum wage laws for people who get tips (btw, the kids I know who made the most money last summer were waitresses and caddies)</p>
<p>It’s the colleges which should be policing internship programs rather than colluding with private industry and, in some cases, non-profits, to provide slave labor–and I use that term seriously. Many of today’s college students must take unpaid internships to complete their degrees, and others feel compelled to take these internships to build their resumes, regardless of whether the internships provide the required training or just have the students do tasks for which the employers should be hiring some of the masses of unemployed and paying fair wages. My S was REQUIRED to have an internship to complete his History degree–he did copying and filing at a museum and learned nothing, but the college never inquired about the supposed internship program and gave him the needed credit, while the museum didn’t have to pay anyone to do the work. It was disgusting.</p>
<p>The tech company I worked for had a policy that ALL interns would be paid. $10/hr plus commuting cost (NYC) plus a generous lunch allowance. And that was regardless of any school policy to the contra. And they did real stuff, read: experience work. Each was given an intern plan and assigned to a mentor. It was a REAL internship.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that these two guys are stepping up to file suit. I hope they can turn it in to a class-action and get others to join. I’m sure a lot of interns are afraid to speak up for fear of being blacklisted in the industry. A successful suit could make a huge difference all the way around.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound as if the accountant in that story was a student, but he was doing work that related to his field in order to gain experience and make contacts in a specialized industry. It’s not clear if he was displacing a paid employee or was the sole accountant for the production.</p>
<p>I think the schools who require internships, but don’t monitor them, are often guilty of shirking their responsibility…what are the tuition dollars being used for if the school is not taking an active part in overseeing the internship? Are they contacting the internship provider in advance and giving them information on the educational goals and labor restrictions? Many internships are done at smaller companies who don’t have HR and legal departments to guide them. It’s understandable that they’re willing to help the student out but can’t disrupt their regular employees…so only menial tasks are assigned. If schools would model their required “internships” along the lines of the rotations required for healthcare or education majors this problem would not be as widespread. The schools would be providing clear expectations/guidance (something students generally won’t do), checking on their students frequently, and usually conducting site visits if the rotation is local. It would quickly become apparent if the preceptor can’t/won’t fulfill their responsibility to actually teach the student.</p>
<p>My son had a DC internship with a senator and was paid well - through a grant from his school. However, he did mostly meaningless work, or work totally unrelated to the job description.</p>
<p>If his school hadn’t provided the grant, he wouldn’t have taken the job.</p>
<p>Nobody has made these unpaid interns take the jobs.</p>
<p>@parent1986, I think the problem “these days” is that students DO feel they have to take unpaid internships if it means they will then have “relevant experience” to list on their resumes.</p>
<p>The concept of the unpaid intern is the same for both the for-profit and for the non-profit sectors, and for both enrolled students and unaffliated persons. An intern must must be doing meaningful work that advances the student’s education. Any benefit to the employer must be secondary. It is the idea that every student has to have an internship to complete their education that has given rise to the junk internship and employers love the idea of all that free labor.</p>
<p>From the article: "Workplace experts say the number of unpaid internships has grown in recent years, in the movie business and many other industries. Some young people complain that these internships give an unfair edge to the affluent and well connected."</p>
<p>Heh. Affluent people are unfairly getting internships that pay nothing. Those guys have all the advantages.</p>
<p>But if you strip out those two sentences, the rest of the article does seem to make sense.</p>
<p>I have no problem with an unpaid internship in which the intern is actually learning and gaining experience, OR a low-wage paid internship that consists mainly of hard menial labor but allows the intern to at least observe and get a sense of the environment. It is the combination of free slave labor and no deliberate educational training, as was the case for these litigants, that should be cracked down on.</p>
<p>Both of these interns seem to have already had their degrees, so their was no relationship with a college from what I can see.</p>
<p>I think a better issue for that sentence would have been to point out that you kind of have to be reasonably ‘affluent’ to be able pay someone for the opportunity to work for free.</p>
<p>Exactly. For most companies having interns around is barely worth the time and effort for the real staff to supervise and help them. The zero pay is pretty much inline with the value of what they really do. Few companies would regret having them abolished.</p>
<p>Floridadad-I’m not sure that this would be a bad outcome. Then they would have to actually pay real wages to people to do the work that they are now getting on the cheap. Many companies are creating temporary internships out of positions that were formerly entry level jobs, and the number of entry level jobs and positions where one expects a certain amount of training on the job are disappearing. The result is that if a student hasn’t had an internship in his field by the time he graduates, it’s too late. The entry level jobs for the new graduate have been replaced by internships for the next group of college kids who has yet to graduate.</p>
<p>barrons- if few companies would mind if they were abolished, why do they continue to offer them and advertise for the positions? Why not just not offer them?</p>
<p>It sounds like we both agree they should be abolished.</p>
<p>At medical institutions I deal with (both non-profit and for-profit), they get clinical interns - physicians/nurses in training, computer techs, and “general” interns who may be in accounting or the store room or whatever. The institutions have no real use or need for them, and they all make the productivity of the supervising staff go down. Other than occasionally evaluating someone for future employment, the only reason they do so is because there is so much demand from the students to get some real world experience, and the institutions look upon it as service to the community. </p>
<p>I know several physicians who specifically opt out of it because the interns slow down their workflow, and it affects their bottom-line; some are salaried and have slow practices and don’t mind. Others are active in their alum associations and do this to support their alma even though it costs them money in productivity.</p>
<p>IMO, for the government to interfere in this arrangement will primarily (and badly) impact the students looking for some real world experience, and will serve everyone the best by minding their own business. I always tell my daughter to profusely thank the for-profit Vets and Vet hospitals where she has spent many an interesting day for the opportunity they provided her, and take them little tokens of appreciation, like pastry from a highly regarded bakery near our home. (She’s in HS and isn’t even a potential employee).</p>
<p>PS - I also think the argument between for profit and non profit interns is utterly bogus. If the compensation is to prevent the intern from being exploited, what’s the difference? Taking a message for a congressman isn’t different from taking one for anyone else.</p>