If you ask most of my students, an internship in their chosen field is the Holy Grail. Students all over the countries spend countless hours networking, polishing resumes, and doing Skype interviews, all in an effort to get hired as an intern. Very little thought is given to salaries, because students just want to “get their foot in the door.”
I did my time in many, many internships while in high school, college and law school. I made what felt like billions of photocopies, ran errands, bought wives’ gifts, and fetched coffee. In most cases, once I proved myself I also wrote court pleadings, talked to clients, and did research. I don’t regret any of my internships, although I wish I spent a little less time in the copy room. I made really good connections, learned a lot about the “real world,” and gained enough humility to appreciate the people that helped me once I was the one asking for copies to be made.
But are all these internships legal? Turns out that many are not; we have federal laws that require fair wages to be paid to all employees, and unpaid internships may violate those laws. Read this interesting article about a lawsuit filed against Conde Nast, the magazine publisher, by two of its former interns. The plaintiffs have asked the Court to turn the lawsuit into a class action, which will put greater pressure on the publisher, and all companies that hire interns, to either pay them more or only hire those that get college credit. What is sad for the next generation of college students is that the response by companies to these lawsuits has been to cancel their internship programs. On balance, is that good or bad? Will that force the companies to actually create paid positions? Or will college students miss out on the chance to learn from internships?
4 Comments
Nick Li posted on October 29, 2013 at 4:21 pm
If a company is making interns do the same tasks as paid, full-time employees, they are definitely exploiting free labor. Conde Nast was clearly exploiting their interns by forcing them to work 12-hour work days. The fact that they were paid $1 per hour seems more like an insult than being paid nothing at all.
I think the point of the internship is to educate the interns about the business/industry processes and have them get involved, but not necessarily use them to do monotonous, undesirable tasks that no full-time employee wants to do.
Renee Schwacke posted on November 4, 2013 at 4:10 pm
Although internships can be a great opportunity to launch a career should not mean that interns can be taken advantage of in the process simply because of their title. If interns are doing tasks that would have been otherwise performed by paid employees, there must be some form of compensation in order for that work to be legal. However, if the company happens to be volunteer-oriented (meaning that tasks are performed by volunteers to begin with) then perhaps the intern does not need to be paid. Compensation for interns should ultimately mirror the standard payment customs of other workers at the company.
Receiving college credit should also qualify as compensation, since college credits can be worth thousand dollars. Although it is not a direct form of monetary compensation, the value of the college credit supports the companies appropriate recognition of the interns labor.
Oren Shevach posted on January 12, 2014 at 6:12 pm
I think internships usually benefit both sides involved; the intern gets more exposure to real life work situation and does build these relationships, and the employer that gets to recruit a potential workforce an groom it from an entry level. I really hope that the more employers can understand this is a two way street and compensate interns accordingly.
Chen Shi posted on February 1, 2014 at 2:27 pm
I desperately hope I can find an internship while I am still in college, regardless of the pay. From my understanding money is not the only reward out of the investment of our time. We cannot take away the money when we die. However, interning in a company or a field that I am interested in is already a fairly beneficial experience for me to learn about the real world, find out my passion and potential career, and improve myself in general. No matter “Intern” is a fancy word for “Volunteer” or not, I would definetely go for an internship where I can gain more self-awareness and knowledge. For me, that is the most important thing.