Unfair Internships and the media

There are a few reasons why unfair internships are still so common: internships are transitional, lawmakers offer them, and, of course, the journalism industry is full of them. Gida Hammami covered the issue at EditorsWeblog.org recently:

The journalism industry is highlighted in the report as failing to meet acceptable standards of internships, most significantly in its use of interns as a cheap replacement for full-time staff members.

No wonder it’s so rare that such a widespread illegal practice is mentioned in the media. Too bad: media outlets could ask their free interns to cover the issue !

Unpaid internships: common but illegal

Another labor lawyer looks at unfair internships, another layer finds an illegal practice. Michael Tracy:

A common, but frequently unreported labor violation is the use of unpaid interns in violation of minimum wage and possibly overtime laws.  The scenario is fairly typical: a company offers an opportunity to ‘break into the business’ in exchange for the intern working for free.

He also provides his perspective on college credits in return for job experience:

Some companies try to get around the law by requiring that the internship be part of a college program.  However, there is no exception to the law allowed just because the “intern” may receive college credit.

He also has an interesting opinion on the lack of lawsuits:

The main reason that you do not see more lawsuits regarding unpaid internships is that the interns are very unlikely to sue.  In most cases, they fear being blacklisted, as they will undoubtedly need to use the internship as a reference to get any future work.

I would add that interns see their situation as a transition. By the time they file and win a lawsuit, they will have moved on to a proper job. They won’t benefit from their effort. But the law has provisions to address this problem, at least in California:

This is where California’s Private Attorney General Act comes in.  Because this law allows anyone at the company to sue for labor violations, even if they themselves are not affected by the violation, it is now possible for these companies to be brought into compliance with the law.  If you work for a company that uses unpaid interns and would like to put an end to this illegal practice, you should consider bringing a Private Attorney General cause of action.

So if you’re an employee that’s been displaced by an unpaid intern, you have the law on your side.

Turning to internships during the economic crisis

Some more evidence that the practice of unfair internships may worsen under the current economic crisis.

Steinfeld said the media and brokerage firms are among those using unpaid interns sometimes with the promise of future jobs.”They always had paid internships,” said Steinfeld, referring to the brokerage firms. All of a sudden, in this economy, there are big-name firms saying ‘if you want into this business, you’ll have to work for free doing cold calling,’” he said.

The practice remains illegal nevertheless.

Even after graduation, some work as unpaid “interns” in situations that violate state labor laws. State Labor Department spokesman Leo Rosales said students may only work for free if they get school credit. After graduation, the minimum $7.15 hourly wage is required.

Not the land of the free

According to the Globe and Mail, interns in some sectors are treated fairly in Canada. At least, they are paid.

Money, money, money That’s right. Payment.

At Protiviti Inc., a risk and audit advisory services firm in Chicago, interns are paid only a little less than first-year consultants. “In this market we’re trying to find technology, accounting and finance students. When you’re looking for that kind of student, you don’t really have an option. Everybody is paying their interns,” says Jessica Harrison, North America head of recruiting at Protiviti Inc.

At Bayer Inc., in Toronto, interns make the equivalent of what a full-time employee would make, with a salary of $26,000 to $47,000 per year. “You would be surprised what students are making these days,” says Gord Johnston, vice-president of human resources at Bayer.

Since this article is providing advice to employers looking for interns, this blog can only welcome this recommendation.

Pay to be privileged

Lindsay Gerdes makes the case in Newsweek against pay-to-intern schemes. She says that if these companies do the heavy lifting for you, you won’t learn to get a job yourself.

A personal favourite is certainly the claim by one of those companies that paying-to-work gives access to those who are not privileged: “it makes it easier for students from schools without tight internship connections to get the experience.” “But still have $10,000 to cough up”, we may add.

Viva Las Vegas

Hurray for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, that will launch this fall the “Rebel Intern” program that will ensure that interns do not get abused by employers. This program covers interns that do not receive credit from the university. Since there is little monitoring of these internships, students are more vulnerable. The program “provides students an on-campus advocate if an employer is not living up to his end of the bargain.”

Paul Cardino, from UNLV, explains: “If an employer migrates away from the goals of the student, it’s a way of redirecting the program. We advocate for the student.” It’s good news as interns have little to no bargaining power (the good old “don’t take the job if you’re not happy!”) and no way of getting organized since they are spread across a multitude of organizations. They need this kind of support.

Germany is coming to its senses

German Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Labor Franz Müntefering has a heart for young graduates. In a parliamentary session in early September, he demanded that young academics be appropriately remunerated for their work. “I see with great concern that an way of using internships is taking hold that cannot be accepted.” If companies use interns to conduct full-time work but don’t pay them appropriately, that was not okay, said the Social Democrat. “Young people coming out of university must not be abused”, he added, and called for a law to force companies to treat interns fairly, including provisions for a four-month time limit to internships as well as interns’ rights. The ministry of labor is currently investigating how internships could be regulated.

Needless to say, employers were not amused, countering, with some justification, that the German labor market is already over-regulated, and questioning whether the number of interns had really increased.

In Germany, the debate about the abuse of interns has been raging with varying intensity for two years. The common complaint is that interns apply themselves fully in a new company, only to then have to start all over again in a different outfit.

More on this situation in the coming days.

Time: The (Brave) New World of Internships

Internships are getting some attention from mainstream media this week: Time is publishing “The New World of Internships“. All is well in this world where internships are providing experience and better chances to be employed. Or perhaps not all.

Andrew Sum, a sociologist at Northeastern University who studies youth in the workforce, has a bleaker explanation: traditional jobs for youths are disappearing. As immigrants and oldsters crowd the market for jobs flipping burgers or packing groceries, teens are getting squeezed. In 1978, 61% of kids aged 16 to 19 worked; in 2005, it was 40%. Sum’s data does not include internships.

“This data does not include internships” means that jobs are placed by internships. Time itself defines internships as “  part-time job of limited duration, paid minimally or unpaid, in which the interns learn while contributing to the organization.”, meaning that youth is forsaking a wage for internships. They are not accessing new opportunities: they are getting a raw deal. What would happen if internships didn’t exist? The workforce would renew itself anyway.

Time’s definition is all wrong in the first place. Either they don’t realize what internships are or they don’t know what they should be. In the first case, they should drop the “part-time” section along with “the interns learn” because interns learn no more than a new employee. Or they could say what an internship should be and drop “while contributing to the organization” because it misleads readers into thinking that internships are meant to be beneficial to employers.

Hourra for Anya Kamenetz who pointed at the absurdity of unpaid internships:

The subject of pay is a sore point with critics. “It’s ridiculous that kids will enter the work world bearing tens of thousands of dollars in college debt, and still be expected to work for free,” says Anya Kamenetz, author of Generation Debt.

I would however nuance that the real reason to pay interns is not so much that they need the money than they simply bring money to the organizations they work for by contributing their time and competence. The article gives some examples of how a paid internship has benefited the intern and the employer.

It also quotes some who think internships are no good to get  into college:

Paid or unpaid, some high schoolers and their parents hope internships will pay off in the increasingly high-stakes scramble for spots at top colleges.

Forget it, say some. “They don’t help,” says Frank Walsh, college guidance counselor at the selective Regents School in New York City. “Colleges would much rather you did a college-level calculus course last summer than interned at an investment firm” — one reason Regents requires internships during spring of senior year, when the application ordeal is over.

Banking profits, internship losses

Interning for the Somerset Patriots: it’s 14 hours a day, picking garbage, selling baseball tickets. “‘We tell them from day one they are just as important as a full-time employee,’” If so, why are they working for college credits or $750 a month?

These interns work at the Commerce Bank Ballpark in New Jersey. 2004 profits for Commerce Bancorp: $1.6 billion.

Send me your best one

The point of unfair internships, their proponents would say, is that they teach you skills. That’s your salary. One would guess that it’s skills you wouldn’t get with an entry-level job, otherwise you would be paid an entry-level salary. Right?

Let’s take an example: a sports management major interns with a Triple A baseball team (Senior Interns for the Mud Hens, Calvin College, August 2, 2006). See the relevance? Let’s look a little closer.

Exoo’s works in the Mud Hens’s operations department, doing general maintenance for the team facility and overseeing ticket takers and ushers. (…) One of Exoo’s duties is to check every seat in the ballpark for wear or breakage. “That’s kind of tedious,” he says.

See: the intern is already learning. And he’ll have plenty of time to do so:

Exoo says he can easily work 12-hour days when the team is in town. In fact his first week on the job he put in 75 hours!

How did they recruit the right guy for this kind of responsibilities? you may ask.

“A previous student of mine interned at the Mud Hens,” says physical education professor Jim Timmer, who taught and coached in Cleveland prior to coming to Calvin. “He said send me your best one, and we sent him Dean.”

At least, the intern is on a scholarship and is getting credits for his work. Wait — getting credits for checking every single seat in the ballpark?

Sometimes it’s the salary that’s unfair. But when the internship is part of a degree, the duties can make an internship unfair. It should offer opportunities unseen to a new employee. In this particular case, the intern could stick like glue to the general manager during and between the games. He’ll have plenty of time once he’s hired to learn about seats checking.