Why are unpaid internships legal?

[IllMil]

So, I'm 22, recent grad, and I made the decision toward the end of school that I was going to stay away from newspapers, despite the fact I majored in journalism and all my experience was freelancing at papers and managing the one at school. I just didn't like the pay or the market, or the schedule or the hours, etc...

Anyway, I got lucky, was hired as a temp (sometimes they call me an intern, I don't really know, but whatever) at Northwestern Mutual. I'm doing similar stuff to what I did for papers, feature-type stories for corporate communications. Obviously it's a different spin, but you get the point. I get $16 an hour, but not quite 40 hours, so it's not really reliable employment and I'm still looking elsewhere.

A bunch of my friends are interns now, whether still in school or just out, and most of them are unpaid. I don't understand why this is even allowed. Some of them have to even use their own software or computer for work. So they aren't given resources, or money, but are expected to produce material to benefit the company/paper. Why is this legal? Why is it illegal to work in a factory for less than minimum wage, but you are allowed to screw recent grads by giving them NOTHING. Why isn't there some labor group protesting this? It's literally going on everywhere, I'm not just talking about newspapers.

I feel like when you find a "paid" internship it's some kind of golden ticket, as if you should be expected to not be paid for your work. And I think that's absolutely ridiculous. These companies are using your productivity and occupying hours, days and weeks of your LIFE, and they allowed to do it without ANY sacrifice on their part.

And how many better qualified candidates do the companies lose because they simply can't afford to have mommy and daddy pay for everything while they work for free?

 

[Shaggy]

I can't vouch for recent grads because there's no way I would've ever done an unpaid internship after I graduated from college. To me, the "pay to learn" process was over the day I got my degree.

While in school, I did an unpaid and got 3 credit hours for it and an addition to the resume. I worked about 15 hours a week. It was worth it to me.

 

[WriteThinking]

Most unpaid internships are done for class credit/units.

But even if they're not, it happens, and newspapers do it because...well, because they can.

Prospective journalists need and want the clips and experience. Have to have them, in fact, and it's really that simple.

By the way, the gig you have actually sounds incredibly good. I would run with it, and do everything you can to take it as far as you can, both where you're at now, and if you go elsewhere, which your current position seems very likely to help you do.

My advice to you would be to stick to that, not newspapers. My advice to your friends would be to get into a position like yours, not newspapers.

 

[Shaggy]

By the way, the gig you have actually sounds incredibly good. I would run with it, and do everything you can to take it as far as you can, both where you're at now, and if you go elsewhere, which your current position seems very likely to do.

My advice to you would be to stick to that, not newspapers. My advice to your friends would be to get into a position like yours, not newspapers.

Agree. That's the type of job that newspaper guys are looking for now.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

A simple guess is that if someone agrees to do it, then it's legal. If a company says "you can have this gig, but we aren't going to pay you" then you can say no.

 

[IllMil]

Fair enough - maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this is a new practice. My dad, who graduated from school in early 70s, told me he never even heard of this type of stuff for post-grads. At some point, it became OK and accepted for companies to do this.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

I'm no lawyer, but in most cases I believe post-grad unpaid internships are illegal.

I worked close to 40 hours a week for nine months and got a whopping 3 credits, but at least I was getting something in return.

My shop has an absolute rule: interns must be in school and receiving credit.

 

[IllMil]

I don't think they're illegal. Before NML I worked at an advertising agency, post-grad, unpaid. I got hired only weeks later, so it wasn't that bad. But I have lots of friends doing unpaid post-grad stuff. I think it comes back to what someone said earlier. You agree to it, then I guess it's no different from volunteering.

 

[TwoGloves]

Because nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to accept the internship?

 

[WriteThinking]

One of my first experiences in this business was an unpaid/no-credit stint at a smallish area newspaper that was the only paper in its city.

I don't remember how long I did that -- yes, it was some time ago -- but it was for a substantial length of time, maybe a year or 15 months, or so. I remember I even worked a graveyard-shift job at an AM/PM mini-market just so I could work for the paper during regular hours and still have some money.

At the time, I was glad to do it, and I enjoyed it. And, although I got nothing in the way of money then, that paper eventually gave me my first paying journalism job.

So, the connections, the relationships that I'd built up during the unpaid stint, combined with the good work that I did and the fact that they liked me, did eventually pay off. I think that's what most people to do unpaid internships hope for.

It's a little naive, maybe, but really, very normal, too.

 

[Starman]

"Citizen" "Journalists." : :

 

[SixToe]

Because nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to accept the internship?

This.

If they offer, and you agree, then you accept the terms.

 

[Babs]

My understanding of the law on unpaid interns is that they cannot be doing work that is the core of the money-making process. They can only do work that is in addition to what the normal workers do, it can't replicate it. This is why a lot of interns work for the charity arms of businesses. And why you see so many in non-profits.

Though of course not everyone follows the law.

 

[Ice9]

And how many better qualified candidates do the companies lose because they simply can't afford to have mommy and daddy pay for everything while they work for free?

Guess that depends on if said unpaid intern is allowed to get another part-time job to compensate.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

I can't accept a positon that pays less than federal or state min. wage, even if I want to. So the legal if I accept argument seems to have a lot of holes.

I also think that unpaid internships are only OK if you're getting some kind of college credit. At my shop, ours is unpaid and we're not allowed to have anybody that isn't both in school and getting course credits for the internship.

 

[OrthogonalWaterfowl]

One of my first experiences in this business was an unpaid/no-credit stint at a smallish area newspaper that was the only paper in its city.

I don't remember how long I did that -- yes, it was some time ago -- but it was for a substantial length of time, maybe a year or 15 months, or so. I remember I even worked a graveyard-shift job at an AM/PM mini-market just so I could work for the paper during regular hours and still have some money.

My experience just a year and a half ago was almost identical. At the time I had just finished college (without a j-degree, didn't decide to do that until after graduation) and had no clips and no experience whatsoever, not even with a college paper. I worked a full-time job second shift in a print shop (glorified Kinkos) for a year while I hassled editors and hiring people, offering flat-out to work for free as long as I got writing assignments and some editing experience. A tiny little community paper took me up on it and paid me $30 a story, and I did some editing one day a week before I went to my full-time regular job. Did that for a couple months, talked them into paying me $60 a story, then after six months I was able to go out and get a full-time asst. editor position at a small magazine where I've been for several months now.

I felt a little crappy offering flat-out to work for nothing, but you know what? Nobody was going to give me, a guy with zip-zero experience, a break simply out of the goodness of their heart while turning away experienced people with degrees. The only thing I had going for me was that I was already supporting myself and so could "afford" to work for nothing, so I don't feel any regret at having gone out and created my own opportunity. Frankly, you've gotta do what you've gotta do. And it let me get my foot in the door.

So, to the original poster: it sucks that companies can get away with this, but them's the breaks, at least at the moment. Everybody's told me every step of the way that this is a crappy profession to be getting into, and they weren't kidding. You say recent grads are getting screwed, but look at it this way: without working for nothing, it's likely the papers simply wouldn't hire ANY recent grads whatsoever, and then they'd REALLY be screwed. Especially people like me.

Did I get screwed? In a way. But I was willing to do it, because it meant a lot to me to be able to get some experience. And in the end, it was worth it. Without that experience, I almost certainly wouldn't have gotten my current job.

 

[podunk press]

Our paper only hires unpaid interns for class credit.

We have as many unpaid interns now as actual writers.

 

[OrthogonalWaterfowl]

Our paper only hires unpaid interns for class credit.

We have as many unpaid interns now as actual writers.

It's not even remotely the same thing, but that reminds me of a story I heard a while back: the Philadelphia Inquirer cut its paid internship program, but supposedly its union contracts forbid unpaid interns. Their solution? Ask the schools to pay the company so they could pay the interns. Nice.

 

[Fredrick]

Unpaid internships in which newspapers publish work of the intern is low life, classless bull****. You publishers should be embarrassed to be members of the human race.
My god ... pay for the work.

 

[TheHacker]

At my place we take unpaid interns only if they are receiving course credit. I've had a couple work for me and there's paperwork I have to fill out and send back to the university so they can get their credit.

We used to let the kids from the local university "work for free," but we had a problem once where someone complained about some problems with a story written by a college kid working for free. The kid had no accountability to us. He just disappeared and never worked for us again. So we stopped taking free work after that unless there's course credit (and hence accountability) involved.

This university still has a class that requires the kids to get a certain number of stories published, which I think is really a ridiculous expectation. I went to a pretty good J-school and never had any such requirement.

You might say there are plenty of Web sites out there where the kids can try get their stuff published, but I always feel like that's asking a lot of the kids and of editors. A kid comes to us and says "I have to get stories published to pass my class." A lot of editors will say, like Robert Duval's character in The Paper: "You do have a problem ... but it's your problem." We still have these kids coming at us asking to write for free and we turn them away now unless they're interested in an internship for credit.