Agreed on the paid internship front – even if its minimum wage – it is a question of valuing labour and people in general.

Things like these internships make me finally agree with Beverly McLaughlin on Wallace v. United Grain Growers (http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1997/1997rcs3-701/1997rcs3-701.html). She felt (in her dissent) that because employers and employees negotiated their contract from an unequal bargaining position that employees were in need of protection (I apologize to my undergrad law prof and the Chief Justice herself if I butchered this explanation). This protection results in employers not being able to fire alcoholics, among others, if their disease affects their work performance, unless they have demonstrated certain good faith actions (time off to go to rehab, encouragement to go to rehab, etc.) Up until I read this post, I thought she had it completely wrong (see my last sentence); that this view of inequality between employers and employees was exacerbated. But if positions are so sought after that employees are willing to forego income completely to gain an edge, I think she has a very strong point. The only way to hold employers in check from exploiting employees and their work is to afford employees the protection of the courts.
Now some will say, if you pay for an internship and then receive a salary, then you’ve been paid. But I will lump unpaid and bribed internships together. Even if the sum is paid back in salary, the employer is making an employment decision without merit in mind, and the employee is being exploited for the monetary gain of the company.

And these can’t be legal (though my disbelief can be mitigated with proof). Minimum wage is required for training (regardless of the practice of a sketchy Waterloo drinking establishment) and work. I should point out that training and education are categorically different. I give NOTHING to my school. My intellectual property remains my property, and I get to take advantage of the opportunities my school affords me through my payment of tuition (labs, libraries, profs). I was not an agent of my school, and no judge would find me to be so. If I am an intern at a research institution, for example, my institution has claims on the products I produce (I don’t have details on how much or how little, but claims). so while you ‘intern’ and get your ‘training’, you are being ‘exploited’. and much like prostitutes who say they like the money, you’re nothing more (and your ‘employers’ are nothing more than pimps)
Suggesting that a period of your work for an employer should come with no payment is slavery. Is it the brutal, racist 19th century kind? No, but it is the 21st century equivalent, and should not be given a pardon.

Which leads me to a couple of questions:

2 – Is there a way for interns to get money from employers who did not pay them, even if the contract they signed stipulated there would be no pay?

3 – could someone passed over on one of these positions sue / take it to a Human Rights Tribunal?

Interesting article. Unpaid internships are great! Why so? Because it allow individuals who are trying to pursue a career in a field they did not graduate in a chance. Take for example myself. I graduated with a biology degree, but decided to get into the advertising and marketing field. If not for my current company offering a intern position, I would not of learn the ropes of SEO and SEM tactics.

What I love about this discussion is that it illustrates a growing reality — the blurring of distinctions between learning and work. Increasingly, one of the major benefits of “work” is the opportunity the situation provides to learn.

Internships are a perfect example of a situation that squarely encompasses both “work” in some traditional sense and learning.

I’ve been reluctant to take on interns over the years unless I knew that my summer schedule would allow me ample time for teaching (coaching, mentoring), because the willingness and availability of a senior individual to teach is, in my experience, an essential element of a successful intern experience.

The relative balance of the two (learning vs. “production,” I guess you could call it) seems to be the issue here, and the assumption behind the posts. Micheal’s legal argument is based on an assumption that the worker is being exploited in the arrangement.

But what is the value of spending three months in a private tutorial with an experienced senior leader? Surely this has value (unclear whether it has $50k of value, but I guess it depends on the teacher/leader — there are some people that I’d pay $50k to learn from for 3 months in a heartbeat).

On the other hand, would it make sense to pay money to have your child take on a menial task, with little learning opportunity? Surely not, but presumably this is not what people are doing in these internships.

Then we come to the more cynical possibility, that the payments are not really for the learning value, but rather are for the association — to be able to add experience at a particular company to the young person’s resume. This behavior is a reality in both work and traditional education. We all know some people pay to have their children attend a particular college for the prestige, rather than because its the best fit for learning. My view is that if that’s what they want to do, so be it.

I think going forward that we all should consider the value of the learning provided as part of the compensation we receive or provide. Perhaps more importantly, anyone in a managerial role must shift from being a supervisor to being a teacher.

Mike,

I’ve never thought much about unpaid internships before, although I would guess that in some extremely sexy industries (Elle magazine, ballboy for the Yankees, Sharpie holder for Brad Pitt), the company could afford not to pay — demand is just too high — and the employee just wants the experience.

I don’t know if I buy the ‘rich kids get all the breaks’ argument — I mean, weren’t they the ones doing the unpaid internships instead of building burritos at Taco Bell in the first place?

So maybe it’s just the rich kids whining about the filthy rich kids.

In which case, who cares?

Neil

Really interesting discussion here.

Unpaid internship is a win/win situation however way you think of it.

I think it would work best if the internships were based on logic of zero hour contracts, if one didn’t work then no payment. i.e. intern continues (forever if necessary) to work for free till the employer sees some financially measurable results.

I bet in the times of mass redundancy any student would gladly work for free just to fill empty gaps in their CVs with big names.

Tokhir

Here’s an article that describes how a free Toronto daily has replaced its paid writers with unpaid interns

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090209.WBnobodysbusiness20090209183420/WBStory/WBnobodysbusiness

Unpaid internships are just ways of keeping the working class from moving into the professional ranks. All else equal (same college, same degree), the working class kid cannot compete with the rich kid. Not everyone has an upper-middle or upper class mommy and daddy to pay for their bills (and often relocation costs) for these internships. Regular people cannot magically pay their bills and have unpaid internships- they need paid jobs.