In a couple of blog posts this spring, I commented favorably on the Obama Labor Department’s decision to crack down on employers who abuse their college-age interns—essentially using them as replacements for regular employees, minus the pay. Far from saying “you can’t have unpaid interns, that it’s exploitation,” as John Stossel put it, the regulations simply require that internships serve ... Read More
I’m posting the column that was scheduled to run in this week’s Harvard Independent… until the issue was canceled. This is an elaboration of my views on the unpaid internship debate, which has been a hot topic on the HPRgument lately. See Max’s initial post and my response. Serfs Up! – Unpaid Interns and the Culture of Dependence The Obama ... Read More
In dueling editorials, two sets of Crimson editors opined today on the federal crack-down on unpaid internships. I’m with the pro-payment crowd, but I think that both the sides made the same conceptual error by assuming that this is a straightforward case of equality versus opportunity. The majority view was that, even though stricter regulation “might result in fewer internship ... Read More
No — that would be a tasteless joke. But they do perform a lot of work for free! As The New York Times explains in a piece that should have been, in retrospect, pretty obvious: Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say “If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going ... Read More
