Comments on: Weighing In: Are Interns Slaves?

By: The Times’ Silly Article on “Elusive” Internships « The Harvard Political Review

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:48:23 +0000

[...] a couple of blog posts this spring, I commented favorably on the Obama Labor Department’s decision to [...]

By: Half the Sky « The Harvard Political Review

Half the Sky « The Harvard Political Review — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:53:36 +0000

[...] was slavery week on the HPRgument (apparently!). We talked about “intern slavery,” twice, and then American slavery. But what about today? Slavery of course is still a very real problem; [...]

By: Jeffrey Kalmus

Jeffrey Kalmus — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:49:15 +0000

I think that we’re stuck speculating about how employers treat unpaid interns and how those same employers would treat paid interns. I’m curious if there are any good surveys out there on this, or, if not, we can get career services to put a few more questions in one of theirs.

By: Sam Barr

Sam Barr — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:52:33 +0000

Jeff,

If all that the intern is doing is filing paperwork, or other such menial tasks, he should obviously get paid! Otherwise it’s just free labor, pure and simple. And if some firms, because of prestige or whatever, can get themselves free labor, while other firms can’t, then that’s not a fair marketplace. That’s flat-out inefficient.

Furthermore, the reason the feds are getting involved at this point is precisely because unpaid internships aren’t providing the education that they ought to. Under the current law, an internship is allowed to be unpaid if it provides training and education… because those replace monetary compensation. If it really were harder for companies to deny training and education to their unpaid interns, this wouldn’t be an issue at all.

By: Jeffrey Kalmus

Jeffrey Kalmus — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:40:17 +0000

Sam, I agree that “when you pay someone, you try to get your money’s worth.” But I think that you mix up which type of task gives the employers their money’s worth. In an internship which is not meant to be an extended interview, the untrained intern probably contributes more to the organization by filing documents than by doing “interesting” projects which would be done better and faster by the full-time staff.

Further, the staff has to spend a decent amount of time teaching the intern in order for the intern to do an interesting project. In an unpaid internship, it is hard for the employer to deny this to the intern because that education is the intern’s only compensation. In a paid internship, it is less clear that such education is an important part of compensation.