| Raphael Pope-Sussman | Let’s Abolish This Modern-Day Coal Mine |
Raphael Pope-Sussman is a news assistant at Law360. He is the creator of the Audacity of Pope, a blog that chronicled his treatment for testicular cancer.
1I was once arguing about the labor movement with a thoughtful, liberally minded friend of mine, who remarked: “Unions were useful back in the 1900s, you know, to get kids out of the coal mines. But aren’t we beyond that?” We are beyond children working in coal mines. But that’s not because coal executives have softened. It’s because of the labor movement’s legislative victories in the first half of the twentieth century—victories that radically reshaped the way Americans work and think about work.
2In recent years, though, that vision has frayed. This week, thousands of young people will work 40 hours (or more) answering phones, making coffee or doing data entry—without earning a cent. These unpaid interns receive no benefits, no legal protection against harassment or discrimination, and no job security. They generate an enormous amount of value for their employers, and yet they are paid nothing. That is the definition of exploitation. The labor movement should show that it hasn’t outlived its usefulness by organizing and fighting for interns.
3Apologists for the unpaid internship argue that it offers valuable experience. But internships often involve mindless or menial work. In 2010, the Economic Policy Institute reviewed a guidebook of “top” business internships and found many of them provided “no explicit academic or training component,” despite Labor Department requirements.
4For many interns, the labor law seems like a joke: it may be illegal, but it’s also standard practice for an unpaid internship to have no explicit educational component and to offer “immediate advantage” to an employer. A friend of mine spent one day of his internship assembling an Ikea desk in his boss’s bedroom. I once saw a posting on Craigslist for an “ice cream intern.” The ice cream shop wanted someone to scoop ice cream for no pay.
5It’s true that an internship is an essential résumé line. But that’s the case only because the alternative is an empty résumé line. You know what else would look good on that résumé? A summer job in one’s field. But employers would have to be foolish to pay applicants whose services they could get free.
6Unpaid internships exploit interns. But those who can’t afford to take unpaid internships suffer even more. After graduation, in fields like marketing and philanthropy, they are forced to compete for jobs with peers who have already had an internship (or several). And in other fields—like publishing or journalism—graduates with no experience are often denied entry entirely.
7The Labor Department could help immediately by enforcing the existing rules. But what we really need is to ban unpaid internships. Outside of structured job-training programs or apprenticeships, there’s no real argument for unpaid labor. This is a chance for the labor movement to show young people like my friend that it hasn’t outlived its usefulness. Labor groups could end the exploitation by organizing interns, or at least fighting for them. Not even child coal miners worked for free.
Courtesy of Raphael Pope-Sussman
Source: Pope-Sussman, Raphael, “Let’s Abolish This Modern-Day Coal Mine.“ New York Times. New York Times, 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/04/do-unpaid-internships-exploit-college-students/unpaid-internships-should-be-illegal.