The New York Times recently reported that the number of unpaid internships has grown and, with it, federal and state regulator’s concern that employers are taking advantage of career-minded students to illegally obtain free labor.
Danielle Connor FP’06 recently wrote an opinion piece for the Christian Science Monitor on the issue.
“Internships are becoming a joke,” wrote Connor. “Once a coveted form of apprenticeship, they’re now a cynical way for companies to trim labor costs. During this great recession, more and more students and young people are accepting unpaid internships because there simply aren’t paying gigs available. Some employers are taking advantage of this, deceiving young people and offering shallow experiences that won’t actually help them develop professional skills.”
An administrator from the U.S. Department of Labor told The New York Times that unpaid internships must comply with six federal criteria, though many employers fail to pay despite those regulations.
The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) developed the six standards in order to evaluate “whether a worker is a trainee or an employee” according to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The requirements for legality are common to most unpaid internships. The training must be similar to the kind of preparation given in a vocational school or academic institution. The training should be designed for the benefit of the interns, not for the organization at which they are temporarily employed.
The interns should not “displace regular employees, but work under their close observation,” ensuring that the organization does not benefit from free labor.
According to these criteria, employers that provide unpaid internships must derive “no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded.”
It must be agreed that interns are not entitled to jobs after their training has ended, and both the employer and the interns must mutually understand that interns will not be paid for the time they spend being trained at the organization.
“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” a Labor Department official told The New York Times.
In the wake of these findings, Labor Department have stated that the government is going to enforce more serious penalties for employers who fail to pay their interns properly and that the department has begun to expand its efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.
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