<p>I don’t agree with Mr. Sullivan’s article, for the simple reason that the duties listed for himself or his son seem trivial for either a college student or law school student. Whether they get paid or not is specific to their own needs. </p>
<p>If my kids are offered a free internship and I am expected to support them during that process, I would weigh the tradeoffs and see what the internship provides in return on their resume. If all they are doing there is so little to be equivalent of a mimimum wage job, I would tell them to get a real job. I think my kid was getting paid more than minimum wage in 9th grade and had much more real work than what is being listed. OTOH, as an unpaid intern at a national lab living away from home,the kid was running serious experiments along with the college students and post docs and aquired life long mentors. I think my investment was well worth it.</p>
<p>My daughter is a Journalism and Poli Sci major and it’s a given that most of her internships will be unpaid. She knows that and also recognizes that, no matter how many classes she takes, you only really start learning on the job.
However, there are some “internships” out there that would have been plain old summer jobs in my day, and I think such employers are exploiting students. If you’re not going to pay your interns, you have to give them something that really adds to their skill set and that shines on their resume.</p>
<p>“you have to give them something that really adds to their skill set and that shines on their resume”</p>
<p>This captures the essence of the goal of an unpaid internship. Otherwise, we are underselling our kids to the free market system and they should be doing something more useful, paid or unpaid.</p>
<p>Unpaid internships are fine, nobody forces you to do them and as someone said above, they are a net productivity sink for experienced employees - normally we are a burden!</p>
<p>The company/organisation is trying to give something back to society. </p>
<p>I actually has a great experience last year where i interned unpaid with the ministry of finance of Colombia through Intern Latin America - <a href=“http://www.internlatinamerica.com%5B/url%5D”>www.internlatinamerica.com</a> - why is the government going to pay a foreign student? it would look awful to their domestic population of course. So many organisations/governments cant pay for various reasons and many companies just want to help society and so offer internships but can’t pay them, CSR is big these days remember. Also, perhaps the company finds a talented employee out of it in the long-run?</p>
<p>Never forget that if companies had to pay only the best-connected would get them as there would be far fewer internships.</p>
<p>also, never forget that internships arent suppsoed to last that long, obviously i disagree with the idea of someone having to intern like unpaid for 3 years or something</p>
<p>but it annoys me that people can’t just “man up” like we say in the UK. im not from a rich background but i earnt money serving tables to intern & pull myself up the job ladder etc</p>
<p>Well i would sure never do this except maybe for a nonprofit. There’s too many paid opportunities on campus, especially with work-study, to consider anything unpaid as more than a scam. I’d rather have no commute and work at a department or do research, and at the same time build a resume and yes, get paid in the process.</p>
<p>This is quite possibly the dumbest law suit ever. If Interns are mandated minimum wage, companies won’t still hire the same amount of interns, they simply won’t hire any more interns. Then students like us would be robbed of the experience and exposure. </p>
<p>Here’s an idea. You don’t want an unpaid internship? Don’t take one.</p>
<p>Exploitation IMO. I personally think that there should be no such thing as an unpaid internship. Minimum wage at the very least.
My daughter had three unpaid internships that gave her wonderful experience and nothing more…and in the industry she worked it, the students are not finding gainful employment. It needs to change</p>
<p>Wow. At first I read the article and was completely on the author’s side, but after reading some of your responses, I realized this is a very well thought out mandate. Internships do seem to reward those affluent enough to not need an actual paycheck. I also think this will benefit employers as there will be more competition among students to get an internship, which will allow the employers to be more selective.</p>
<p>^^ Not only selective , but more than willing to take advantage of new talent knowing very well that next semester there will be a new fleet of eager hopefuls willing to show what they have got and willingly walk away with nothing more than a pat on the back fro a job well done</p>
<p>I obviously do not mean to impune you, Loki, but this is exactly the issue with many unpaid “internships.” They have people do work for free when the work would normally be done by paid employees. And though many people seem to be arguing that the experience alone should be payment enough, the Department of Labor disagrees:</p>
<p>The most important points in that fact sheet are a) that the internship’s primary focus must be on the development of the intern in an environment closer to a classroom than on-the-job training, and b) that the intern must not be doing work that would otherwise be done by a paid employee. In many cases, that is simply not what is happening. </p>
<p>Here’s a harsh reality. The job market is still very tough for new graduates; companies are trying to cut overhead costs. Unpaid interns can do the work of unskilled laborers for free, and companies have no shortage of applicants for these unpaid positions because the job market is so tough that students are ready and willing (though they may not be able) to give up their right to fair wages in exchange for a few lines on a resume. And that is illegal in the United States.</p>
<p>Now, the laws for non-profits are different and more lenient with regard to pay of interns, but essentially anyone who does meaningful work as an intern is still entitled to payment. Many “interns” are actually volunteers. It is mere semantics, but “intern” vs. “volunteer” is a pretty important difference, as even generally benevolent non-profits have fallen into the trap of calling a volunteer job an “internship” in the hopes of getting volunteers who otherwise would not look there.</p>
<p>To put it simply, in the United States we believe in a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. If your work is almost exclusively for your benefit, with your company deriving little to no benefit from you, you sound like an unpaid intern. If your work benefits your company more than it does you, you sound like an employee. If your work benefits both you and your company, you sound like a paid intern OR a volunteer… but certainly not an unpaid intern.</p>
<p>Interesting that the rules apply to only “For-Profit”</p>
<p>“This fact sheet provides general information to help determine whether interns must be paid the minimum wage and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act for the services that they provide to “for-profit” private sector employers.”</p>
<p>So essentially if Charlie Rose stayed on NPR, the lawsuit could not have happened?!</p>
<p>I also do not agree that companies and firms take on interns for “social responsibility” or to “give back to society”. The firm’s or company’s first responsibility is to keep its doors open, otherwise they would not exist to give back anything to society! Often times keeping the doors open means getting free labor, that yes, are more often than not just a lot of taks that would be completed by paid employees.</p>
<p>I hear more about interns, especially unpaid, doing the same things that most other employees of the firm are doing to “gain the experience”, and rarely is it a unique learning initiative from the firm. Unpaid internships are usually scams for the firms to get free labor while offering a “unique educational experience” that is only unique in that the intern will be the only one not paid for what they are doing.</p>
<p>Exploitation. It ought to be completely illegal unless it’s being done as some sort of educational thing. To me, that would mean shadowing employees and doing practice projects. Not working on any projects that are actually part of the company’s operations.</p>
<p>Of course, big business is the head of state in the US, so we’ll never see the death of unpaid internships. How else are CEOs gonna afford two yachts?</p>
<p>If both parties agree it is their business and no one else’s!! Internships can provide something, maybe not money. Some bosses would write recommendation letters to colleges, and other jobs. Kids learn skills or have experiences that help with college admission. A high School kid who can help out at a science lab somewhere might gain knowledge they can’t get at school, and make connections for later. If other people start interfering with internships and make it difficult for those offering them, those jobs will go away. I would hate to see that.</p>
<p>Well… if an eager wanna be student signs up for an internship for a company that profits from their free service, in the hopes of gaining employment and gets nothing but a handshake and a " good job, well done " push out the door while ushering in the next hopeful , where does it end ?</p>