Senior Juliette Dallas-Feeney, a Hatchet columnist, discusses the often overlooked rights of unpaid interns.
Unfortunately, there’s sometimes a fine line between unpaid internships and slave labor. The U.S. Department of Labor has a list of criteria that must be met in order for an internship to be unpaid, including the following: “The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded.” In other words, the work I do at my internship cannot benefit the company or the way it runs its business in any way. According to these criteria, it’s essentially illegal for me to file papers, organize a co-worker’s calendar, or deliver mail.
Bravo! Very rational argument. Why work for free/pay for working, and not even get community service hours? Unpaid internships can seem quite ridiculous.
You are absolutely right. Thanks for making the argument. Hopefully, it will spark a debate at GWU. Why not organize a discussion/meeting around the issue? Or a follow-up to this opinion column with some investigation in the legality of internships in DC?
I fail to see though how this fits with the rest of your argument:
“If a company can’t afford to pay its interns an hourly wage, it should at least provide transportation reimbursement and money for lunch. This would cost the company at most about $100 per intern a week.”
This does not make the internship legal according to the FLSA that you cite, neither does it make it fair if the intern really contributes to a company.
We’ll keep covering the issue at http://UnfairInterships.com
I meant http://UnfairInternships.com
Is the author really complaining about an unpaid internship in this economy? Kids all over the country who do not have the convenience of going to school in DC, as Ms. Dallas-Feeney does, would kill for ONE opportunity to make copies and get coffee on the hill or at a major firm for free.
This is just another example of spoiled, privileged, GW kids who think they’re so entitled.
ang, i think that’s exactly her point. why should kids be ‘dying’ to fetch coffee on the hill? today, not even a college diploma is enough- kids are interning for free, sometimes for years, just to remain competitive in the job market. how has this come to be? with debt and loans piling up, it seems ridiculous that kids are now ‘killing for one opportunity” to make copies or get coffee on the hill.
the convenience of going to school in DC? be careful with your words, or do some research, and you’ll find that the public education system in DC is failing kids at an early start. as for college students, as spoiled or entitled as they may be in your eyes, rights are still deserved, and still exist but often go unknown. i found the author’s review of interns’ legal rights to be very informative.
Anonymous,
The DC public school system has nothing to do with this. I was referring to college. And kids should be ‘dying’ – as you put it – because hard work and dedication builds character. If you don’t sweat for what you have then you didn’t earn it – and though Ms. Feeney seems to take so much issue with these internships, it hasn’t stopped her from doing them because she knows they’re invaluable and she needs them.
Working for status is the foundation of capitalism. If internships were easy or “situationally” appealing then they wouldn’t be worth anything.
“The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded.”
I think you really overlooked the importance of the rhetoric in this statement. You completely ignored what is implied by “immediate advantage” and took it to mean that you could not do anything productive whatsoever while at work without it being classified as slave labor. Your photocopying papers and filing documents could hardly be considered providing the company with an immediate advantage. For instance, by filing papers you increased the productivity of the paid workers, who presumably through their work provided an advantage for the company. Your involvement at the firm could hardly be considered immediate and, in fact, it is so far removed from providing an immediate advantage that it borders on being worth exactly what you are paid (in this case, nothing).
I still think it’s quite a good article, just be careful when reading statements issued by the Department of Labor. Rhetoric cannot be glanced over as unimportant.
hard work is of course important, but the author is distinguishing between employers that offer experience, learning opportunities, and the potential for ‘dedication,’ and others that just waste time and take advantage of unpaid interns. a good internship should be invaluable, but the problem here is that many are abused.
a paid employee can at least stick out a tough job for the money, but an unpaid intern who isn’t gaining any experience is truly at a loss.
anon,
The law also says that an intern cannot replace an employee. In most offices, doing the filing, making copies, getting coffee, running errands, arranging the boss’s calendar, etc. (all things that are assigned to unpaid interns) are done by paid employees. Since the intern is doing work they would otherwise pay for, they are breaking the law.
I did my degrees in communications and journalism. A lot of my classmates were doing unpaid internships where they were being used as receptionists, secretaries, file clerks, errand boys, personal assistants, etc. and got absolutely nothing out of the experience. This was illegal, but they were all afraid to say anything lest they damage their career prospects. In the overwhelming majority of communications and journalism jobs, they will NOT hire you if you don’t have at least one internship and have a good reference from that internship. So, complaining about being exploited in an illegal “internship” could cost you the ability to get a job after you graduate.
BTW, I was one of those kids from working class roots who had to work rather than do an internship. Despite going to a highly-ranked grad school, having excellent references and having an exceptional academic record, I couldn’t even get an interview. The only interview/offer I got was to work free for 3 months (40 hrs +) at a magazine where I’d be expected to do what paid employees did and signed a contract stating I wouldn’t hold any other job (paid or not) during those 3 months. This was illegal, but I would have done it if I could have afforded to. Shamefully, the offer came from a big-name, successful science publication.
Sorry, that should say that I was expected to “sign a contract,” not “signed.”