Switch Theme:

"The global intern rebellion has begun"  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
Last Remaining Whole C'Tan






Pleasant Valley, Iowa

The global intern rebellion has begun
By Ross Perlin


Summer internship season may be coming to an end, but the global intern rebellion is just beginning.

The latest unpaid intern lawsuit — representing 40 former and current interns — is targeting Dualstar Entertainment Group, holding company for the Olsen twins’ $1 billion fashion empire. Lead plaintiff Shahista Lalani alleges that she worked 50 unpaid hours per week for several months. At one point, she says, she even had to be hospitalized for dehydration.

“Unpaid Interns vs. Olsen Twins” is only the most recent example: Over the past few years, hundreds of interns have been involved in several dozen lawsuits. The most high-profile case, filed by former interns Eric Glatt and Alex Footman against Fox Searchlight Pictures over their unpaid work on the movie Black Swan, is still being fought out in the courts. Other cases have recently settled, with interns and the firms representing them receiving an unprecdented $26 million (and counting) in settlement agreements. $7.2 million from Viacom, $5.8 from Condé Nast — it may sound like a lot of money, but it works out (at best) to a living wage for each intern for the hours worked.

After all, that’s the point. The lawsuits — and the intern rebellion more broadly — both are and are not about the money. No one gets rich from an internship, even a well-paid one at Google (sorry — Alphabet!), and no one gets rich by suing for back pay. But fair pay for a hard day’s work is the key to restoring fairness and equal opportunity to a labor market that has become deeply skewed, especially for young people.

Working unpaid to break in is not a natural, inevitable, or universal phenomenon — in fact, it was almost unheard of just three or four decades ago. The word “intern” originally described an overworked young doctor, just out of medical school. Between the decline of unions, the gutting of labor laws, and a hypercompetitive job market, what has evolved since is a blind race to the bottom which now affects every corner of the white-collar world. The entry-level job is becoming an endangered species.

The majority of students at four-year colleges take on at least one internship before they graduate, whether they want to or not. What they do and how they are treated vary substantially from employer to employer, but two things are clear. First, there are very few situations under which a for-profit employer can legally hire unpaid interns — the only exception being short-term, bona fide training programs that meet Department of Labor criteria. (They may or may not be supervised by a school, but academic credit is no substitute for pay). Second, unpaid interns are in “legal limbo” when it comes to workplace protections against sexual harassment and various kinds of discrimination — another unacceptable consequence, which new legislation in a number of states is just beginning to rectify, of an internship economy that has gone off the rails.

Yet the most damaging effect of unpaid internships — which may make up as much as half of the total number — has to do with who they exclude. Insidiously, unpaid internships are exacerbating economic inequality and changing the complexion of many professions, with particular serious consequences in politics, media, entertainment, and non-profit work. “Getting a foot in the door” is a telling phrase, because mandating unpaid work, as employers and schools are increasingly doing, means closing the door in the face of low-income and even many middle-class youth.

It’s not just working for free — unpaid internships are a “pay to play” system. A typical internship entails spending thousands of dollars in rent, food, transportation, and daily expenses in some of the world’s most expensive cities, not to mention the opportunity costs. Nor is one internship usually enough. Community college students and high school graduates are being shut out, as are working-class students at four-year schools. In “How the University Works,” Marc Bosquet notes that 80% of undergraduates in the U.S. work while they’re taking classes, with 30% working full-time or more. It is a false assumption to think that all interns are privileged, but the fact is that a significant percentage of young people cannot “pay to play” and end up effectively being barred from the white-collar world.

Enter the global intern rebellion. News of a United Nations intern living in a tent can spark instant outrage. Major universities and employers begin to rethink their policies. While other presidential candidates stick to the model of hiring unpaid interns as they raise hundreds of million of dollars, Bernie Sanders — the rare senator who paid his interns all along — sets himself apart by at least paying $12 an hour.

Not a summer too late, change is in the air.

Ross Perlin is the assistant director of the Endangered Language Alliance and the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy.”


source

Putting aside that it's an MSNBC link, and lets ignore the gratuitous Bernie Sanders boost at the end there - how do my fellow Dakkaroos feel about unpaid internships in the US?

For my non-US Dakkaroos, how do internships work in your country? (Here's how they should work in the US.)

(Note: As with Dreadclaw's posting style, I prefer to withhold my opinion until the thread is rolling because I don't want to be "shaping" the discussion towards my own biases. If this is a problem please let me know.)

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
 
   
Made in us
Depraved Slaanesh Chaos Lord




Inside Yvraine

i-If they d-don't like the working conditions, they can always quit and go somewhere else!
   
Made in us
Perfect Shot Dark Angels Predator Pilot





United States

I feel little sympathy. No one forces you to intern, and for every crappy internship - there is another where someone is filing or sending faxes and getting a fantastic resume from it.

If you don't like something, don't do it.

"And the Angels of Darkness descended on pinions of fire and light... the great and terrible dark angels" 
   
Made in us
Colonel





This Is Where the Fish Lives

Interns should be paid.

Interns are kind of like apprentices and we pay them.

 d-usa wrote:
"When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

Im gonna sound like such a red here, but unpaid internships are a form of class warfare and another example of how education is not equally accessible by people of all socio-economic backgrounds. It is a simple fact of life that getting a job in this economy is extremely difficult unless you have internship experience, as employers are less and less interested in taking on someone who has a degree without an internship. Unfortunately, with most internships these days being unpaid, the only people who can afford access to these internships are those who come from well to do/ more economically stable families who can afford to lay out the cash needed to cover all the expenses associated with an internship, and there are many: commuting costs, housing (even if you're living with your parents there is still an associated cost burden placed on them), food (you gotta eat lunch, right? even if you're bringing a bagged lunch, again its a cost burden on your parents, etc.), etc. etc. etc.

Most of the lower income college students I know need to work during the summers, if not year round, to manage their living expenses for the rest of the school year, and often working retail or waiting tables isn't looked at as favorably as an internship at a major defense contractor or law firm.

 zgort wrote:
I feel little sympathy. No one forces you to intern, and for every crappy internship - there is another where someone is filing or sending faxes and getting a fantastic resume from it.

If you don't like something, don't do it.


No, no one holds a gun to your head and makes you get an internship, but if you want to be competitive in todays job market you damned well better have an internship or two under your belt. Even 3 years after graduating from a top tier college with an advanced STEM degree and with 2.5 years of work experience I was still getting passed up for positions in favor of others who had internships, etc.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/16 03:42:42


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Blood Angel Captain Wracked with Visions






 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Interns should be paid.

Interns are kind of like apprentices and we pay them.

This is my attitude too. There is a world of difference between volunteer work and internships.

 
   
Made in us
Last Remaining Whole C'Tan






Pleasant Valley, Iowa

Generally speaking, I agree that interns should be paid.

I have no real problem, conceptually, with the idea that you take on an internship in the purpose of learning something, and that you don't get paid, again, in theory, because you're not really profiting the company or organization you're interning with. In fact, you're probably costing them money in terms of lost productivity and whatever mistakes you make.

And thus ends the theory.

In practice, nearly every single company I have ever worked at has used interns as pure unpaid labor. They're not there to learn anything, but simply to be exploited as unpaid labor. This artificially increases unemployment and causes lots of other issues already adequately covered by the article (that only well-off young people can afford to work for free, thus worsening inequality by structural advantage).

As such, I do not think the institution of unpaid internships should be permitted anymore. If you see value in having interns learn about your industry, you need to pay them, just as an apprenticeship. My current company pays it's interns. I think it's sort of ridiculous to do it otherwise. I understand the free-market, "quit if you don't like it" argument, but the problem is it's not a free market - the government has put it's thumb on the scale by allowing this exception to normal labor laws.

Volunteering is totally different and not covered by what I said above.




This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/08/16 07:27:38


 lord_blackfang wrote:
Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.

 Flinty wrote:
The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
 
   
Made in us
Colonel





This Is Where the Fish Lives

Ouze wrote:
In practice, nearly every single company I have ever worked at has used interns as pure unpaid labor. They're not there to learn anything, but simply to be exploited as unpaid labor.
The last company I worked for before my current one made extensive use of paid interns. Not only were they paid relatively well for their experience level, they were given paid housing in the DC Metro area as an added benefit. As a result, they were well known at the schools they targeted (especially Penn State... ) and attracted numerous engineering interns that not only had no interest in later coming to work at our company, but often didn't even specialize in the fields in which we worked (mechanical/HVAC/plumbing).

 d-usa wrote:
"When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
 
   
Made in gb
Lord Commander in a Plush Chair





Beijing

Unpaid internships are just free labour and a means to keep certain people out of your industry. I see intern especially for jobs in politics and legal practices. Places which are known for being snobby and upper class. Most normal people cannot afford to work full time yet unpaid for six months. Thus are kept out of professions that will only accept applicants with such suitable 'work experience'. I teach children from all backgrounds who have the ability and desires to work in such professions and the reality is that unless you can support yourself to work free for several months to a year, then you'll never be able to enter these careers.

You're not volunteering your time for charity, it's a full time employment position. You should be paid for days work, not with promises of paid work next year. That they can get people to do it unpaid, as a means of free labour and social selection of their future workforce, is just exploitation and manipulation.
   
Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





We pay our interns. Not much, of course, as they're unskilled and require additional training, but they do add something to the company as a whole and thus deserve some cash.

   
Made in us
Proud Triarch Praetorian





If you are doing work for a company, you deserve to be paid for your work.
   
Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Dreadwinter wrote:
If you are doing work for a company, you deserve to be paid for your work.


Depends. If you require extensive attention to do the work, then you also cost the company quite some money. It all depends on the qualifications an intern brings.

   
Made in de
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience






Nuremberg

I think interns should be paid, but I think this also highlights another problem in education.

Many jobs these days are highly technical in nature- they take specific "on the job" training to grasp, and it's not completely possible for a University to give people that sort of specific knowledge.

My solution would be to implement organised internships as part of the university experience. It would add a year or two to the length of time needed to get a degree, but we would be putting out graduates with the experience and qualifications that industry apparently wants. Of course, I'm coming at this as someone who believes third level education should be free or heavily subsidised. I understand that it's not so easy to add a couple of years in countries where it's really expensive because of profit gouging institutions.

But systems like this exist in some courses already and they are fairly well thought of. It also helps to solve Sigvatr's point about the unseen cost of untrained labour, as the cost would be borne by the educational facilities.

Certainly I don't think we can keep doing such short technical degrees as time moves on- there's just so much more to learn as we discover more.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

Internships could really benefit from an approach similar to Germany's take on apprenticeships and job training. Heck, internships could take a page from blue collar training in general.
   
Made in gb
Lord Commander in a Plush Chair





Beijing

 Sigvatr wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:
If you are doing work for a company, you deserve to be paid for your work.


Depends. If you require extensive attention to do the work, then you also cost the company quite some money. It all depends on the qualifications an intern brings.


That thinking suggests that employers shouldn't have to pay staff during their training period. That's a bit silly really, you're still working for your employer, and every job requires some training periods.
   
Made in us
Proud Triarch Praetorian





 Sigvatr wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:
If you are doing work for a company, you deserve to be paid for your work.


Depends. If you require extensive attention to do the work, then you also cost the company quite some money. It all depends on the qualifications an intern brings.


When I was working at the Hospital, my first month of training on the floor I was assigned to one person and I worked with them the whole time. I was not allowed to do anything without them until my training period was over. That was pretty extensive attention.

Still got paid.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

 Dreadwinter wrote:
 Sigvatr wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:
If you are doing work for a company, you deserve to be paid for your work.


Depends. If you require extensive attention to do the work, then you also cost the company quite some money. It all depends on the qualifications an intern brings.


When I was working at the Hospital, my first month of training on the floor I was assigned to one person and I worked with them the whole time. I was not allowed to do anything without them until my training period was over. That was pretty extensive attention.

Still got paid.


In addition, depending on the company, the person training you might be receiving additional pay during that time.
   
Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 d-usa wrote:


In addition, depending on the company, the person training you might be receiving additional pay during that time.


Uhm...that ain't a really good argument in favor of paying interns.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

 Sigvatr wrote:
 d-usa wrote:


In addition, depending on the company, the person training you might be receiving additional pay during that time.


Uhm...that ain't a really good argument in favor of paying interns.


It's a good argument that there are companies that recognize the benefit and value of a comprehensive training program that encourages workers to teach and learn.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Sigvatr wrote:
We pay our interns. Not much, of course, as they're unskilled and require additional training, but they do add something to the company as a whole and thus deserve some cash.
I heard the whole praktikum situation in Germany is pretty diabolical. Graduates are under huge pressure to do them, and just get exploited for years, no pay (except maybe lunch and travel), no health insurance etc...
   
Made in us
Member of the Ethereal Council






chaos0xomega wrote:
Im gonna sound like such a red here, but unpaid internships are a form of class warfare and another example of how education is not equally accessible by people of all socio-economic backgrounds. It is a simple fact of life that getting a job in this economy is extremely difficult unless you have internship experience, as employers are less and less interested in taking on someone who has a degree without an internship. Unfortunately, with most internships these days being unpaid, the only people who can afford access to these internships are those who come from well to do/ more economically stable families who can afford to lay out the cash needed to cover all the expenses associated with an internship, and there are many: commuting costs, housing (even if you're living with your parents there is still an associated cost burden placed on them), food (you gotta eat lunch, right? even if you're bringing a bagged lunch, again its a cost burden on your parents, etc.), etc. etc. etc.

Most of the lower income college students I know need to work during the summers, if not year round, to manage their living expenses for the rest of the school year, and often working retail or waiting tables isn't looked at as favorably as an internship at a major defense contractor or law firm.

 zgort wrote:
I feel little sympathy. No one forces you to intern, and for every crappy internship - there is another where someone is filing or sending faxes and getting a fantastic resume from it.

If you don't like something, don't do it.


No, no one holds a gun to your head and makes you get an internship, but if you want to be competitive in todays job market you damned well better have an internship or two under your belt. Even 3 years after graduating from a top tier college with an advanced STEM degree and with 2.5 years of work experience I was still getting passed up for positions in favor of others who had internships, etc.

Yeah, im scared of much of that. My mom just lost her job, so when im done with school, im done, but I need go get a job. But igs unlikely I cant get a job straight outta school

5000pts 6000pts 3000pts
 
   
Made in de
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Smacks wrote:
 Sigvatr wrote:
We pay our interns. Not much, of course, as they're unskilled and require additional training, but they do add something to the company as a whole and thus deserve some cash.
I heard the whole praktikum situation in Germany is pretty diabolical. Graduates are under huge pressure to do them, and just get exploited for years, no pay (except maybe lunch and travel), no health insurance etc...


You cannot have no health insurance at Germany, everyone has a health insurance, whether having a job or not. A lot of working experiences are paid nowadays and in general, working experience is required for most better-paying jobs. Germans do love their Vorstellungsgespräch, though. It's very formal, with fixed questions you need to know / have a good answer too. Presenting yourself in the right way can trump experience or the lack thereof.

   
Made in gb
Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle





chaos0xomega wrote:

No, no one holds a gun to your head and makes you get an internship, but if you want to be competitive in todays job market you damned well better have an internship or two under your belt. Even 3 years after graduating from a top tier college with an advanced STEM degree and with 2.5 years of work experience I was still getting passed up for positions in favor of others who had internships, etc.


On top of that, once people do get in to an unpaid internship and find out it's not work shadowing the VC and learning the cut and thrust of global business, but running coffee errands and doing every weekend cover they can't just leave. If they leave to find something else they lose their first references and the company will defend themselves and insist that everything was wonderful but the intern was lazy and could not hack the pace of business.

Saying "well, if they don't like it, leave." Completely ignores the reality of the world.

The idea that an intern is adding nothing to the company is just silly. I can't believe any company gains nothing from interns.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/16 17:49:01


 insaniak wrote:
Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






So, they have to work, and don't get paid for it? There's a word for that ...
   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Yea'rly!)




The Great State of Texas

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Interns should be paid.

Interns are kind of like apprentices and we pay them.


Ours are paid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ouze wrote:
Generally speaking, I agree that interns should be paid.

I have no real problem, conceptually, with the idea that you take on an internship in the purpose of learning something, and that you don't get paid, again, in theory, because you're not really profiting the company or organization you're interning with. In fact, you're probably costing them money in terms of lost productivity and whatever mistakes you make.

And thus ends the theory.

In practice, nearly every single company I have ever worked at has used interns as pure unpaid labor. They're not there to learn anything, but simply to be exploited as unpaid labor. This artificially increases unemployment and causes lots of other issues already adequately covered by the article (that only well-off young people can afford to work for free, thus worsening inequality by structural advantage).

As such, I do not think the institution of unpaid internships should be permitted anymore. If you see value in having interns learn about your industry, you need to pay them, just as an apprenticeship. My current company pays it's interns. I think it's sort of ridiculous to do it otherwise. I understand the free-market, "quit if you don't like it" argument, but the problem is it's not a free market - the government has put it's thumb on the scale by allowing this exception to normal labor laws.

Volunteering is totally different and not covered by what I said above.





agreed. In earlier times internship were three month interviews. Not now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/16 18:14:51


-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
 
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan




Homestead, FL

I wonder if the Military should start an internship program for officers. Would be hilarious to watch a 2nd LT running Coffee for Cpls and Sgts

I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you mess with me, I'll kill you all

Marine General James Mattis, to Iraqi tribal leaders 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

It already exists, its called OTS/OCS/ROTC/Service Academies.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Interns should be paid.

Interns are kind of like apprentices and we pay them.


Agreed, and from the other side of things, the joker said: if you're good at something, never do it for free.


Tier 1 is the new Tactical.

My IDF-Themed Guard Army P&M Blog:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/355940.page 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






New Orleans, LA

We pay our summer interns well. Decent interview process for us, practical experience for them. Free? Draw a vacuum on Kronk's ______.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/08/17 00:43:53


DA:70S+G+M+B++I++Pw40k08+D++A++/fWD-R+T(M)DM+
 
   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

When I worked at Sony we used to a number of university students every year, for a one year placement. I used to have two of them.

We always paid them the standard salary for a low level starter, which meant in London about £17,500 a year including London Weighting, and gave them a £500 bonus.

The arrangement worked really well for everyone. The students got some great experience, they made a proper contribution to their teams, and the company for its part was able to maintain helpful links with several universities, and to groom some students for full time jobs with Sony in the future.

I believe also that treating people fairly gives them a good impression of your company. You never know where people will be in the future who might be able to help or harm you or your company depending on whether then have gone away happy or with grudges from their temporary employment.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
 
Forum Index » Off-Topic Forum
Go to: