While many fourth-year students are still stressed out about post graduation plans, first-, second-, and third-years are trying to line up prestigious summer jobs and internships. Some of them are debating whether to take the job that makes parents everywhere cringe: the unpaid internship. There has been a lot of buzz recently about this issue, with the United States Department of Labor beginning to crack down on companies that hire unpaid interns. The Department of Labor believes that some of these companies may be violating certain minimum wage laws. This is a tricky issue for many reasons, but should we really be trying to eliminate this practice?
There are many problems with unpaid internships. First, most people, especially college students, simply cannot afford to work for free during the entire summer. Thus it is usually the more affluent students who can afford to work without pay, and since these internships are usually about networking, it puts less affluent students at a disadvantage after graduation. Many interns also claim that most of the time they perform menial tasks such as filing and copying papers for which they should get paid. This might be the case. It is unreasonable, however, to think that every moment of an internship will be filled with active learning. Needless to say, if the entire internship is spent paper-pushing, then the intern should speak up.
Some argue that companies take advantage of unpaid interns by using them to perform work that they should be paying people to do. Although this sometimes may be the case, it is unlikely that the Department of Labor's new campaign to end this kind of practice will result in a sudden increase in paid internships. More likely, the internships will be eliminated altogether. Then students who are willing to work for free in exchange for gaining experience or learning about a company will be out of luck. Before we cry "exploitation," we should remember that the people taking unpaid internships do so voluntarily. They do it because they believe that taking an unpaid internship will benefit them down the road. Maybe the internship will lead to a job in the future or the intern will gain valuable work experience that will make them more marketable for paying jobs after graduation. Either way, the intern is clearly only going to work for free if they think that it will benefit them in some way. As long as the intern is willing to participate and essentially work for free, we should not be trying to make it more difficult for students to take unpaid internships. If students didn't believe that the internship was worth it, then they simply wouldn't do it.
The Department of Labor identifies six factors that must be met for an internship to be unpaid and still remain compliant with federal guidelines. Some of these include the fact that the intern must benefit and that the intern's supervisor must not benefit from the internship. This vague criteria can lead to a lot of grey areas. What is a "benefit" after all? Is making one copy as a favor to a busy employee a "benefit"? How about two copies? It is hard to draw the line in this situation, making these sorts of policies hard to enforce. In the end, it seems that we should let the intern decide whether or not they are truly gaining from the internship experience and thus whether it is worth their time. If it is truly not worth the intern's time and they aren't getting anything out of it, then the student should either speak up or leave and find another job. If interns think that sticking it out will benefit them in the future, then it is worth putting up with some of these tasks.
One lesson for students considering taking unpaid internships this summer and in the future is to do your research. Try to talk to former interns or someone at the company to get an accurate gauge of precisely what you will be doing. Having this information up front can help you determine whether the potential benefits of taking the internship outweigh the costs associated with not getting paid.
Although potentially expensive endeavors, unpaid internships can provide students with valuable experience, especially at small companies that may not be able to afford to hire students just for the summer. Excessive regulations governing unpaid work are not only difficult to enforce, but they could also reduce students' opportunities to gain valuable work experience.
Megan Stiles' column appears Wednesdays. She can be reached at m.stiles@cavalierdaily.com.
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