I bet there a few Languishites who wished this ruling was made earlier.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/black_swan_interns_case_internships_should_be_paid.html#comments
Quote
The End of the Unpaid Internship
The judge who said interns should be paid is right.
By Cullen Seltzer|Posted Tuesday, June 18, 2013, at 10:54 AM
Summer brings an annual invasion, in nearly every line of work, of shiny new interns. They're eager to fill out résumés and make contacts. That's what they get instead of money—and so they save their employers about $600 million every year, according to Ross Perlin in his book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. That's why the free intern bonanza continues despite plenty of complaints that it frequently means breaking the law.
Last week, in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, a federal judge in New York broke up the party. Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that interns on two film production crews, including one from the Academy Award winning Black Swan, were employees entitled to payment with actual money. By not paying the interns, their employers violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Judge Pauley got it right. Much too often interns do work that people ought to earn money doing. The benefits of the intern economy don't outweigh the pernicious costs: distorted wages, exploitation of interns, a race to the bottom of the wage scale, and an erosion of the law's protections for workers.
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The Glatt case exposed how many interns don't meet the "trainee" exception to the general rule that all workers must be paid for their work. Judge Pauley made clear that to qualify as a trainee, an intern has to receive training similar to what would've been provided in an educational facility and must do work primarily for his or her own benefit, not the employer's. Also, the intern's work shouldn't be the sort of thing the business would have otherwise had to hire someone to do. The work the Black Swan intern did (getting lunch, filing, running errands, making deliveries) didn't cut it. About résumé fodder and networking, the judge said: meh. Those are benefits that paid workers get, too.
But wait a minute, you might say: These interns weren't tricked. They knew the deal when they signed on and agreed—and perhaps competed—to work for free. But as Judge Pauley pointed out, the Fair Labor Standards Act "does not allow employees to waive their entitlement to wages." That's how the law prevents unpaid interns from exerting "a general downward pressure on wages in competing businesses."
This sort of intrusion in the marketplace is precisely what government should do to regulate commerce. Markets are enormously efficient allocators of resources. But an unregulated market that permits employers to take work for free, and workers to give it, has a dramatic, and unfair, effect.
There are three actors in this drama: employers (who want low labor costs), interns (who will work for free), and workers who need money. Traditionally, employers and interns have joined forces, effectively, to the economic disadvantage of workers. Because of interns, paid entry-level work is scarcer, and some workers lose out. The ones who can't afford to work for free lose out on the training and networking that unpaid interns enjoy. Judge Pauley said that isn't fair and it isn't legal.
This is just one ruling by one U.S. District Court judge, which means it doesn't apply outside of the Southern District of New York. But the Southern District is one of the nation's most prominent courts and Judge Pauley's reasoning is pretty compelling. The Fair Labor Standards Act can require double damages, and it permits winning plaintiffs to recover their attorney fees. Smart employers with internship programs should look long and hard to make sure they're really treating their interns as trainees. Already lawsuits against Hearst and Condé Nast allege they haven't paid their interns the wages they are due. Even where interns got a modest payment, as claimed in the Condé Nast case—in which interns at The New Yorker and W Magazine say they were paid less than $1 an hour— they can say they're owed because they were paid less than the minimum wage.
It's no small irony that the case that could stem the tide of free interns arose from a movie that takes its inspiration from Swan Lake, which centers on a trick and betrayal. Too many internships are tricks played on workers and markets, pretending to be about learning but actually being about running the Xerox and fetching coffee. One hallmark of real work is getting paid for it. Employers and interns everywhere should take the lessons of the Black Swan case to heart.
Boo, that extra money is either going to have to be allocated from elsewhere or not allocated.
I don't believe that this ruling will stand, and if it does, then the only effect will be to eliminate internships. Interns generally don't do wok that someone would be paid for, absent the intern (legal internships may be different). Interns generally do make-work and optional stuff. Every year, I work with students who intern (our seniors basically spend the last 4 weeks of the year on internships) and those who do work that someone would get paid for do so at such a low efficiency and high supervisory cost that no one would pay them to do it.
:yeah: especially if Grumbler is right & internships position are eliminated.
Quote from: grumbler on June 19, 2013, 07:31:20 AM
I don't believe that this ruling will stand, and if it does, then the only effect will be to eliminate internships. Interns generally don't do wok that someone would be paid for, absent the intern (legal internships may be different). Interns generally do make-work and optional stuff. Every year, I work with students who intern (our seniors basically spend the last 4 weeks of the year on internships) and those who do work that someone would get paid for do so at such a low efficiency and high supervisory cost that no one would pay them to do it.
I think I'd add a few more exceptions. When I was a paid intern, I was being paid at a lower wage to do tasks that co-workers didn't want to do, but were still necessary. Also, I'd throw in art gallery interns. Most have many interns that don't get paid who do the grunt work.
That said, I do overall agree with what you've said regarding internships then disappearing.
If you have to pay them companies will just hire experienced people so no experience for students.
Quote from: Grey Fox on June 19, 2013, 07:34:03 AM
:yeah: especially if Grumbler is right & internships position are eliminated.
So then even fewer people will have had experience in their chosen field. I guess eventually that could be some sort of equalizer on the "wanting previous experience" front but seems like it'd first just make things harder for new job seekers.
Yes but eventually the baby boomers will be old.
Quote from: HVC on June 19, 2013, 07:36:10 AM
If you have to pay them companies will just hire experienced people so no experience for students.
Nah. Unexperienced college kids will always be massively cheaper than experienced CdMs out there. There will be less internships and they will pay crap...at least in the fields where interns are unpaid.
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 07:56:21 AM
Quote from: HVC on June 19, 2013, 07:36:10 AM
If you have to pay them companies will just hire experienced people so no experience for students.
Nah. Unexperienced college kids will always be massively cheaper than experienced CdMs out there.
:yeah: :yeah: :yeah:
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2013, 07:37:27 AM
seems like it'd first just make things harder for new job seekers.
Only the ones who were willing to work for free. The rest get a slight boost from no longer competing with "experienced" interns for the entry level jobs.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on June 19, 2013, 08:00:26 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2013, 07:37:27 AM
seems like it'd first just make things harder for new job seekers.
Only the ones who were willing to work for free. The rest get a slight boost from no longer competing with "experienced" interns for the entry level jobs.
My point was that there will initially be fewer places to get "experience" so those with experience (family-ins, etc.) will be even a further cut above.
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2013, 08:18:41 AM
My point was that there will initially be fewer places to get "experience" so those with experience (family-ins, etc.) will be even a further cut above.
Yeah but the people with those sorts of advantages are going to win anyway.
This is a good thing (tm).
My biggest problem with getting a career was always that I couldn't afford to start a career, as that would involve doing unpaid internships far from any support.
As it is because I couldn't afford an internship I couldn't go into the field I wanted.
yeah great idea. Nothing better for companies, college grads, and the economy in general, than the need to pay regular money for totally clueless employees
I applied for a full-time paid internship earlier this year in media relations. That rejection email boomeranged fucking quick.
Quote from: Tamas on June 19, 2013, 08:40:37 AM
yeah great idea. Nothing better for companies, college grads, and the economy in general, than the need to pay regular money for totally clueless employees
Minimum wage is not regular money.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 19, 2013, 08:42:02 AM
I applied for a full-time paid internship earlier this year in media relations. That rejection email boomeranged fucking quick.
Yeah I am going to be lowcrawling and kow-towing trying to get one this fall.
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 08:43:18 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 19, 2013, 08:42:02 AM
I applied for a full-time paid internship earlier this year in media relations. That rejection email boomeranged fucking quick.
Yeah I am going to be lowcrawling and kow-towing trying to get one this fall.
Good luck with that.
I mean, I figured no, I'm not a 22 year old grad with a degree in it, but I wanted to go in that direction professionally, and I thought that the experience I do have in it would've helped. YOU WANT IT DONE QUICK OR DO YOU WANT IT DONE RIGHT
You'd think in an internship they'd want somebody that can do as much as possible. Then again, an intern with experience rivaling the actual employees may not go over well.
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 08:37:59 AM
Quote from: garbon on June 19, 2013, 08:18:41 AM
My point was that there will initially be fewer places to get "experience" so those with experience (family-ins, etc.) will be even a further cut above.
Yeah but the people with those sorts of advantages are going to win anyway.
Yeah but at least the internships gave advantages to another set of people. Now it'd be more explicitly, you come from money or you don't.
When my brother had an unpaid internship, he was doing the work a regular employee would have done, but he got college credit for it.
My first job on film was as Office Intern...which they promptly promoted me at end of first week of me busting my ass.
In college, I worked at the YMCA doing basic customer service type work. One semester, another college student "interned" doing the same exact thing. The only difference was that he didn't get paid and got college credit. Since he went to a private college, he literally was paying thousands of dollars for the experience. It was a crappy job, but at least I got paid. :hmm:
What I said on another forum about this-
The trouble with not paying interns is this really discriminates against people from poor backgrounds.
If your parents have the money to support you or you're lucky enough that your family lives in a major city then unpaid internships are no problem. The argument that it is free education for free work is valid. A lot of internships can be offered only because it doesn't cost the employer anything (in terms of monetary outgoings of course, time is another matter).
However for many of us this is not the case. I for one was never able to do an internship during my previous studies as I come from a rural area and my parents really aren't the richest people in the world. An internship was always out of my price range. It is only now, after I've worked for two years and built up some savings that I can afford to start my career.
This isn't to say that those who had a fortunate start in life are somehow automatically worse workers. Nor is it to say that I myself am particularly awesome but hard put-upon and deserving of special treatment, woe is me, etc.... However there is a lot of talent out there amongst people from less advantaged backgrounds.
Offering enough payment for people to be able to rent somewhere cheap and feed themselves should be a minimum with companies above a certain income. It is quite understandable that small companies can't afford this but that they still might be able to offer a valuable internship to somebody who can afford it.
----
The only trouble is that I could well imagine the big companies using legal loop holes and the like to say that though yes, the intern is working at our global HQ, they are technically the intern of this little company we sub-contract with hence we don't have to pay them. :hmm:
My plan for next year is to intern and work on the evenings. I've saved up to be able to do this. Just hope I can still do it, a lto of internships seem to be restricted to current students only. Bloody rich kids.
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:03:30 PM
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
I understand where Tyr is coming from, but the flip side is that school, at least in the US, doesn't pay and costs money--effectively a negative salary.
In my experience, people right out of school are basically useless for a period of time. Most professional jobs use an apprentice model and a college degree is just a prerequisite. I don't know how to implement this in a practical way, but it seems if you want to help younger people from poor backgrounds, a better solution than banning unpaid internships is to extend college funding mechanisms to the period.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Well that is how we do it in engineering.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Given the cost of firing someone in a company with a very active HR department, it's not that expensive either. And, in any case, it's also competition against other companies. If the other companies offer internships and you don't, then you get to pick through the leftovers that the other company didn't want.
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:26:26 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Given the cost of firing someone in a company with a very active HR department, it's not that expensive either. And, in any case, it's also competition against other companies. If the other companies offer internships and you don't, then you get to pick through the leftovers that the other company didn't want.
or you wait for them to get trained and then pick off the good ones from competitors. No training costs and no dealing wih duds.
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:26:26 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Given the cost of firing someone in a company with a very active HR department, it's not that expensive either. And, in any case, it's also competition against other companies. If the other companies offer internships and you don't, then you get to pick through the leftovers that the other company didn't want.
We bring in interns and then don't hire them. It is a waste of time. I wish we eliminated the program.
Quote from: HVC on June 19, 2013, 07:34:25 PM
or you wait for them to get trained and then pick off the good ones from competitors. No training costs and no dealing wih duds.
How do you know which ones are the good ones if they weren't interning in your company? And why would the interns rock the boat, when they have a guaranteed gig for the most difficult job search of their career?
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 07:25:38 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Well that is how we do it in engineering.
That's what they do at big law firms for law students that actually bother to look around for intern stuff during law school.
http://us.m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/conde-nast-ends-internship-program-181548307.html?.b=index&.cf3=U.S.+News&.cf4=2&.cf5=Yahoo+News&.cf6=%2F&.ts=1382582041&.intl=us&.lang=en
QuoteCondé Nast, the publisher of a wide variety of magazines including the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and GQ, announced it is ending its internship program beginning next year.
The move comes shortly after the publisher was sued by two former interns who claimed they were paid a salary below the minimum wage. Women's Wear Daily , which is published by Condé Nast, posted the news on its own site.
Condé Nast is not the only publisher that has faced or is currently facing lawsuits from former interns.
In 2012, Time magazine published a story detailing a class-action lawsuit against Hearst Corp., which owns Harper's Bazaar magazine. The suit was made on behalf of Diana Wang and other "unpaid or underpaid interns who worked at the company over the past six years."
Women's Wear Daily writes that "a judge threw out the case, but the intern appealed and the suit remains unresolved."
The conventional wisdom about internships is that they aren't so much about the money as they are the experience, and perhaps, a salaried position once the internship is over.
However, according to several studies, that is rarely the case. Several months ago, the Atlantic reported that, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, college students who've had unpaid internships are offered full-time employment (anywhere — not just at the company where they interned) just 1.8 percentage points more than students who never interned.
According to the NACE, 63.1 percent of students who had a paying internship received at least one job offer.
The Department of Labor hosts a fact sheet to help employers determine if interns are required to be paid minimum wage and overtime.
Hmm necro.
Quote from: Iormlund on October 24, 2013, 05:37:34 AM
Hmm necro.
I bumped a thread from June with a recent development. :huh:
Quote from: grumbler on June 19, 2013, 07:31:20 AM
I don't believe that this ruling will stand, and if it does, then the only effect will be to eliminate internships. Interns generally don't do wok that someone would be paid for, absent the intern (legal internships may be different). Interns generally do make-work and optional stuff. Every year, I work with students who intern (our seniors basically spend the last 4 weeks of the year on internships) and those who do work that someone would get paid for do so at such a low efficiency and high supervisory cost that no one would pay them to do it.
qft
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 19, 2013, 09:26:51 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 07:25:38 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Well that is how we do it in engineering.
That's what they do at big law firms for law students that actually bother to look around for intern stuff during law school.
we pay clerks for a summer to evaluate potential future hires...they are worthless and its a three month long job interview
We also get lots of law students who volunteer for unpaid internships who wed never otherwise let in the front door...think of them as walk ons at alabama; they dont have a scholarship but they hope to brag to someone that they played at alabama or to hope against hope that they'll get noticed and earn a scholarship. These people want a line on their resume that reads "big firm llp, summer internship," and they all hope to wow us enough to hire them despite the lack of academic credentials.
this case hurts the chances for the future horatio algers in category two.
we will still have paid clerkships as we always did, but for those who couldnt get that opportunity, the walk on system may be killed
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:03:30 PM
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
And that is the attitude that has wrecked the internship model. Too many employers see interns as free labour rather than students who are coming to learn. When these things started out the motivation for employers was to be able to assess and get first dibs on good talent.
My employer pays our interns 750 Euro/month. When I did an internship in the US eight years ago, I got about 1.300 USD/month, which is barely enough to cover your living costs in a NYC suburb.
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:10:22 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:03:30 PM
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
And that is the attitude that has wrecked the internship model. Too many employers see interns as free labour rather than students who are coming to learn. When these things started out the motivation for employers was to be able to assess and get first dibs on good talent.
cc did you get my pm?
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:09:47 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 19, 2013, 09:26:51 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 19, 2013, 07:25:38 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:19:11 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 19, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
First dibs on the entry level talent. A couple of months of internship is more effective than a couple of hours of interviews when it comes to identifying promising candidates.
A three month long job interview doesn't sound too cost effective to me.
Well that is how we do it in engineering.
That's what they do at big law firms for law students that actually bother to look around for intern stuff during law school.
we pay clerks for a summer to evaluate potential future hires...they are worthless and its a three month long job interview
We also get lots of law students who volunteer for unpaid internships who wed never otherwise let in the front door...think of them as walk ons at alabama; they dont have a scholarship but they hope to brag to someone that they played at alabama or to hope against hope that they'll get noticed and earn a scholarship. These people want a line on their resume that reads "big firm llp, summer internship," and they all hope to wow us enough to hire them despite the lack of academic credentials.
this case hurts the chances for the horatio algers in category two.
we will still have paid clerkships as we always did, but for those who couldnt get that opportunity, the walk on system may be killed
Agreed. I think the practice of law is somewhat different. The law students are actually learning something (about the practice of law - rarely the law itself) and getting a real benefit from being able to say they had the experience.
In the time before time it wasnt uncommon for most law students to work for free for the experience. The crazy salary wars for unproven junior lawyers in the 90s went a long way to ending that. But now there is more of a hybrid approach as you described.
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
cc did you get my pm?
Yeah, but it was someone else asking the question. I am not sure if you sent the PM to him and I was copied (that is what I assumed happened) :)
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:23:47 AM
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
cc did you get my pm?
Yeah, but it was someone else asking the question. I am not sure if you sent the PM to him and I was copied (that is what I assumed happened) :)
You must get a lot of Emails, cause my old email provider had a line explicitly for cc.
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:10:22 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:03:30 PM
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
And that is the attitude that has wrecked the internship model. Too many employers see interns as free labour rather than students who are coming to learn. When these things started out the motivation for employers was to be able to assess and get first dibs on good talent.
Yeah the problem mentioned in most of these cases are that the items they are tasked to do as interns have no relevance on what they would actually do in their jobs.
Quote from: Razgovory on October 24, 2013, 11:37:52 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:23:47 AM
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
cc did you get my pm?
Yeah, but it was someone else asking the question. I am not sure if you sent the PM to him and I was copied (that is what I assumed happened) :)
You must get a lot of Emails, cause my old email provider had a line explicitly for cc.
:D
Quote from: Razgovory on October 24, 2013, 11:37:52 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:23:47 AM
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
cc did you get my pm?
Yeah, but it was someone else asking the question. I am not sure if you sent the PM to him and I was copied (that is what I assumed happened) :)
You must get a lot of Emails, cause my old email provider had a line explicitly for cc.
:smarty:
Quote from: garbon on October 24, 2013, 11:38:41 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:10:22 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 19, 2013, 07:03:30 PM
If a company can not make an intern work, but can only train them, what's in it for the company?
And that is the attitude that has wrecked the internship model. Too many employers see interns as free labour rather than students who are coming to learn. When these things started out the motivation for employers was to be able to assess and get first dibs on good talent.
Yeah the problem mentioned in most of these cases are that the items they are tasked to do as interns have no relevance on what they would actually do in their jobs.
Yeah, its too bad the judge didnt turn his mind to that distinction.
Quote from: crazy canuck on October 24, 2013, 11:23:47 AM
Quote from: Rasputin on October 24, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
cc did you get my pm?
Yeah, but it was someone else asking the question. I am not sure if you sent the PM to him and I was copied (that is what I assumed happened) :)
:Embarrass: i see that now and it makes much more sense given how long youve been out compared to the nature of the questions :)