So, maybe, the colleges should pay them to take classes instead of the other way around?
Coursework is still work, right?
Howard Stern Intern Sues Over Unpaid work
- Thread starter the G-man
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So, maybe, the colleges should pay them to take classes instead of the other way around?
Coursework is still work, right?
I would certainly agree to this if the internship job description provided to the candidates and colleges clearly stated everything that was going to be expected of you - including running coffee for everyone, doing all their gopher jobs etc. and not just listing the items that actually pertained to the skill set trying to be learned, like 'reviewing newsclips' etc.
That's not really the worst idea in the world. Colleges as big business with students as consumers is not exactly perfect.
In the case of the Stern show, it's very well known what is expected of the interns. If she's pleading ignorance, I don't buy it for a second.
Also, someone upthread made the case that internships rarely lead to paying jobs, but the show actually has a history of hiring people from the intern program.
No. Colleges do something for students, not the other way round. Teachers are paid. Researchers and Research Assistants are paid. Etc, all who actually work at university. Students don't work at university, they are basically clients.
Internships are primarily work, not education. Companies do sell that idea, and gullible people believe it, but it's not true. Whatever you do at an internship, you do it FOR the company first, and for yourself second. If you're okay with unpaid internships, go ahead, not my problem. I've never had an unpaid internship, and I would never do it. But I can only advise people not to be fools.
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Even Bob Brinker's competition--MONEYTALK's Bruce Williams (a reactionary if there ever was one)--thinks interns get a raw deal.
Employers are the biggest moochers of all. They want free labor. Years ago, I had just gotten off a security post, still in uniform. A woman was standing out in the heat with a toddler, using her as a prop to beg for money. The business owner of the restaurant where I was eating wanted me to run her off.
He had no contract with my company. He wanted something for nothing, same as the woman in that parking lot.
This must be why they want folks to not wear uniforms off duty.
Turn someone down, and they won't sign with the company. Do a minor task for them..and they won't sign with the company.
But there is hope even if lawyers get a chunk of the money
http://unpaidinternslawsuit.com/
http://www.propublica.org/article/unpaid-interns-win-major-ruling-in-black-swan-case-now-what
It seems to me there are two basic ways to run an internship program:
1. The intern actually learns things, isn't just a glorified gofer doing work that would otherwise go to a real employee and gets college credit.
2. Situations where the above aren't in effect.
I would categorize the first as one that doesn't have to be paid because it's a course of study and akin to taking a class. I would tend to agree with you (though I think your assertion is overly broad) on the latter.
So why didn't it kill the market for entry level jobs back in 1968, when the minimum wage (adjusted for inflation) was equivalent to $10.74 in 2013 dollars and unemployment was at only 3.6%?
Why hasn't it killed jobs in the individual US cities and states that have raised their minimum wage above $10.00 an hour? Why haven't the states that have higher minimum wages than the national minimum (though not $10.00) experienced catastrophic job losses? Why hasn't it caused massive unemployment in countries that have a higher minimum wage like the successful economies below?
If the minimum wage kept pace with a living wage required to just barely keep a family of four above the poverty line (in 2011 dollars) on a full time job it would be at $11.06 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with personal income growth in the US, it would be at $21.16 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with the vastly increased worker productivity in the US today versus the past, it would be at $21.72 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with total national income growth, it would be at $22.08 an hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with consumption growth since 1968 (because we've got more than just transistor radios and black & white TVs at home now) it would be at $25.05 per hour.
Workers are far more productive today, have more expenses, and there's more personal and national wealth to go around, but you don't think they should even raise the minimum wage to below the amount needed to keep a family barely afloat at the poverty line? While it would be much more fair to adjust the minimum wage according to consumption growth, national/personal income growth, productivity, average wages, or a living wage, we don't even adjust it for the bare minimum of inflation like we do with other programs like social security/disability, food stamps, and the poverty line.
If you don't want people to be dependent on the government, you have a funny way of going about it, because while a relative few get wealthier and wealthier, a lot more are being left behind. Minimum wage is not just the wage of teenage kids at their first job any more, it's become the norm for more and more adults trying to support families. If you don't want them collecting government benefits, then the companies and business owners which are greatly benefiting from their worker's vastly improved productivity need to take better care of their employees.
Now that was a damn good post.
So why didn't it kill the market for entry level jobs back in 1968, when the minimum wage (adjusted for inflation) was equivalent to $10.74 in 2013 dollars and unemployment was at only 3.6%?
Why hasn't it killed jobs in the individual US cities and states that have raised their minimum wage above $10.00 an hour? Why haven't the states that have higher minimum wages than the national minimum (though not $10.00) experienced catastrophic job losses? Why hasn't it caused massive unemployment in countries that have a higher minimum wage like the successful economies below?
If the minimum wage kept pace with a living wage required to just barely keep a family of four above the poverty line (in 2011 dollars) on a full time job it would be at $11.06 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with personal income growth in the US, it would be at $21.16 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with the vastly increased worker productivity in the US today versus the past, it would be at $21.72 per hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with total national income growth, it would be at $22.08 an hour.
If the minimum wage kept pace with consumption growth since 1968 (because we've got more than just transistor radios and black & white TVs at home now) it would be at $25.05 per hour.
Workers are far more productive today, have more expenses, and there's more personal and national wealth to go around, but you don't think they should even raise the minimum wage to below the amount needed to keep a family barely afloat at the poverty line? While it would be much more fair to adjust the minimum wage according to consumption growth, national/personal income growth, productivity, average wages, or a living wage, we don't even adjust it for the bare minimum of inflation like we do with other programs like social security/disability, food stamps, and the poverty line.
If you don't want people to be dependent on the government, you have a funny way of going about it, because while a relative few get wealthier and wealthier, a lot more are being left behind. Minimum wage is not just the wage of teenage kids at their first job any more, it's become the norm for more and more adults trying to support families. If you don't want them collecting government benefits, then the companies and business owners which are greatly benefiting from their worker's vastly improved productivity need to take better care of their employees.
Seems to me what you've done here is advocate for a semi-market based federalist approach. Raising the minimum wage in states where there's a paucity of labor or where the market can bear the increase works, whereas an across the board federal mandate can be a job killer in some states.
Seems to me that's not what it was advocating for at all, because it quite clearly made the point that a far more significant national minimum wage increase in 1968 did not kill jobs in the slightest (nor is there much evidence to support that right wing meme in general). That I mentioned certain cities and states enacting their own minimum wage hikes above the federal level was in no way saying it should be limited to those cities and states, but I think you knew that. Nice job parsing the entire post down to the two sentences that you think support your point, while not actually doing so.
The problem with resting a theory on 1968 economic data is that the US is quite different than it was nearly 50 years ago. For example, we aren't a manufacturing powerhouse anymore.
So it was less a matter of parsing than a matter of looking at more recent and, therefore, potentially more relevant data.
And what would be wrong with letting each state regulate its own minimum wage? If your point is correct, wouldn't the states with a higher wage end up attracting better workers and have better economies? And wouldn't this tend to encourage other states to do so as well?
It doesn't rest solely on 1968 data. 1968 was chosen as an example simply because it was the peak of purchasing power for the minimum wage and because it crossed the mythical unbreakable $10.00 barrier urbandefault mentioned (when adjusted for inflation). But there's no evidence that minimum wage increases in general lead to significant job losses or that even those minimal job losses aren't offset by people being able to earn a better wage to support their families.
There's nothing wrong with letting individual states and cities regulate their own minimum wage (above the federal minimum) according to the cost of living in their respective region. And the same dynamic of attracting workers and encouraging other states to raise their MW would still exist. However, the federal minimum wage needs to be raised as well, because relying on states alone is not enough, and people are falling into greater depths of poverty and debt. We don't even adjust for inflation like other federal programs and regulations do. We don't adjust for a living wage based on the national average. We don't adjust for worker productivity or consumption. We don't adjust for national wealth increases or average overall wages in similar job categories.
Why is that okay to continue when there's no compelling evidence for the destructiveness of raising the minimum wage on jobs yet tons of evidence that more people are falling into poverty, debt, and needing to settle for minimum wage jobs to get by? We're destroying the middle class and building a larger and larger underclass and then choosing to leave them even further behind rather than doing the bare minimum to provide for them and their families, which is not even close to a fair wage given what they're producing for their companies.
There's nothing wrong with letting individual states and cities regulate their own minimum wage (above the federal minimum) according to the cost of living in their respective region. And the same dynamic of attracting workers and encouraging other states to raise their MW would still exist. However, the federal minimum wage needs to be raised as well, because relying on states alone is not enough, and people are falling into greater depths of poverty and debt. We don't even adjust for inflation like other federal programs and regulations do. We don't adjust for a living wage based on the national average. We don't adjust for worker productivity or consumption. We don't adjust for national wealth increases or average overall wages in similar job categories.
Why is that okay to continue when there's no compelling evidence for the destructiveness of raising the minimum wage on jobs yet tons of evidence that more people are falling into poverty, debt, and needing to settle for minimum wage jobs to get by? We're destroying the middle class and building a larger and larger underclass and then choosing to leave them even further behind rather than doing the bare minimum to provide for them and their families, which is not even close to a fair wage given what they're producing for their companies.
When I go to the movies, I have to walk to my seat, and when I use the head, I have to unzip my fly myself. This is work, right? So by your logic, AMC should be paying me to do all this, yeah?
Again, Sirius is a for-profit corporation that pays Stern tens of millions of dollars a year. Not compensating their interns isn't about preserving the educational purity of a college-affiliated internship or encouraging them to focus on the experience without tying it to financial considerations, it's about the nobility in the boardroom sending a message to the younger generation as well as everyone else: be happy with whatever wages we may someday will throw your way, because if you're not famous, you're worthless. It's about creating a society-wide mindset that thinks that a mere $12 national minimum wage would be, gosh, pretty extravagant.
This doesn't surprise me. In my own field, unpaid internships has become a huge hot topic, because they've basically become a requirement to get into the field. Employers (in many industries) have found that instead of hiring entry level college graduates, they can simply get those people to do the same work for free. With unemployment being so bad, employers have realized that they have the upper hand in the equation. The "entry level" paying positions in my field always have "at least 3 years experience" as a requirement...which there is no way to get unless you take an internship, usually unpaid and sometimes not even for college credit. Which means you basically have to be supported by your family for several years longer than anyone wants.
When times were bad, people begrudgingly accepted this situation because they knew that employers themselves had had their funding drastically cut and perhaps their only option was to hire unpaid interns or no one at all. Also, other job prospects outside of your field were just as bad, so if you weren't going to get paid anyway, you might as well gain some experience in the meantime.
However, now that the funding has begun to flow again and employers can afford to bring in new staff, we are not seeing a reemergence of the entry level paying jobs. And why would we? Employers have learned that they can have highly skilled workers do the job for free, and those workers have little choice in the matter since all employers in the field are doing the same thing.
Of course, now the workers do have more choice, because other job prospects have opened up somewhat. So, we now have the problem that less than half of those who graduate with degrees in my field actually work in that field. They aren't able and willing to put up with years of doing skilled unpaid labor anymore. So the field has practically no young workers to replace those currently in leadership. It will be an interesting few years ahead.
As for me, I was very very lucky to have a paid internship that also counted for college credit. Without it, there's no way I could have paid my way through school. It allowed me an independence that many others my age didn't have. And now I work in an unrelated field, by choice, because I'm not willing to do skilled unpaid labor, period. I can't, otherwise how could I possibly afford to live? I sure as hell don't plan on moving back into my parents' house after 10 years. I left when I was 18 and that's the end of that.
As for the poster who said that interns are just lazy slack-offs who don't really do anything or add any value....I can't even describe in words how untrue that is. I don't know what industry you are working in, but from all of the internships I have witnessed, you are working twice as hard as everyone else and earning nothing for it. I have seen interns running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get everything done, because their employer constantly dangles the carrot of a possible future paying position over them (which they rarely actually follow through on), while the paid employees play solitaire and collect their paychecks.
I do have to say, though, that not all industries or businesses function this way, and internships have the potential to be a great benefit to both intern and employer, but the current system is broken.
When times were bad, people begrudgingly accepted this situation because they knew that employers themselves had had their funding drastically cut and perhaps their only option was to hire unpaid interns or no one at all. Also, other job prospects outside of your field were just as bad, so if you weren't going to get paid anyway, you might as well gain some experience in the meantime.
However, now that the funding has begun to flow again and employers can afford to bring in new staff, we are not seeing a reemergence of the entry level paying jobs. And why would we? Employers have learned that they can have highly skilled workers do the job for free, and those workers have little choice in the matter since all employers in the field are doing the same thing.
Of course, now the workers do have more choice, because other job prospects have opened up somewhat. So, we now have the problem that less than half of those who graduate with degrees in my field actually work in that field. They aren't able and willing to put up with years of doing skilled unpaid labor anymore. So the field has practically no young workers to replace those currently in leadership. It will be an interesting few years ahead.
As for me, I was very very lucky to have a paid internship that also counted for college credit. Without it, there's no way I could have paid my way through school. It allowed me an independence that many others my age didn't have. And now I work in an unrelated field, by choice, because I'm not willing to do skilled unpaid labor, period. I can't, otherwise how could I possibly afford to live? I sure as hell don't plan on moving back into my parents' house after 10 years. I left when I was 18 and that's the end of that.
As for the poster who said that interns are just lazy slack-offs who don't really do anything or add any value....I can't even describe in words how untrue that is. I don't know what industry you are working in, but from all of the internships I have witnessed, you are working twice as hard as everyone else and earning nothing for it. I have seen interns running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get everything done, because their employer constantly dangles the carrot of a possible future paying position over them (which they rarely actually follow through on), while the paid employees play solitaire and collect their paychecks.
I do have to say, though, that not all industries or businesses function this way, and internships have the potential to be a great benefit to both intern and employer, but the current system is broken.
There's nothing wrong with the premise of an unpaid internship. Learning practical skills and building knowledge in a professional setting is incredibly valuable. I learned far more in my semester of student teaching than I did in all of my previous classes combined - even considering that my first placement was an unmitigated disaster because my "mentor teacher" saw it as a way to avoid doing work (including instructing me) for six weeks. And, technically, I was paying for ability to be a part of that process.
It's certainly worthwhile to examine where and how internships are misused. And I'm not against changes to be made to protect against future abuse. But there's nothing wrong with trading work for knowledge and experience (as opposed to work for strictly money).
It's certainly worthwhile to examine where and how internships are misused. And I'm not against changes to be made to protect against future abuse. But there's nothing wrong with trading work for knowledge and experience (as opposed to work for strictly money).
Like an actual job.
Which is why we need unions. On every talk radio program--they want everybody to hate unions and gov't--but no one should ever have an unkind word to say about employers. Without gov't or a union, the boss has all the power and the worker has none.
Now employers hate having to deal with unions, because from their standpoint--its holding a gun to their head--but the quote above shows it's actually the opposite.
Thus no unpaid internships are ever really "voluntary."
Now employers hate having to deal with unions, because from their standpoint--its holding a gun to their head--but the quote above shows it's actually the opposite.
Thus no unpaid internships are ever really "voluntary."
