Unpaid Interns: Legal Sweatshop Employees?

Would leading brands and retailers in Europe or the USA allow their overseas suppliers to hire workers and refuse to pay them? Would college licensing directors of our largest colleges and universities allow suppliers of licensed, logo products to be made by unpaid labor? The answer would be a resounding "No!". Yet, as Stephanie Steinberg, a summer intern writing for USA Today points out in an article published today, there are thousands of UNPAID summer interns working for for-profit corporations. Why? Because US law allows companies to not pay them, and there is so much competition for students to have any relevant experience on their resume that they're willing to work for no pay.

"It's frustrating. I know they're not going to pay me because I know there's always somebody who would take this instead of me." Elysia Mann, 18, of Penn State was quoted. As a colleague of mine said, this quote could be attributed to a great many factory workers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China or other countries. The may might not be paid nothing, but it can certainly be low by US or EU standards.

Whenever I've hired an intern, it has been for pay and for a reasonable rate; at least the minimum wage and usually a prevailing rate for someone in that position. Why? Because they're doing real work that has real value for the organization. Because it is the ethical thing to do. So what if the intern is still a student? Does it mean their labor is worth nothing so we pay them nothing? If they're doing work of no value, why have them at all?

The fact is, companies do hire interns to do real work - filing, research, analytics of stacks of data, etc. That work is then passed on to supervisors, managers and others who use the data to make decisions and run the organization. If the work was being done by a paid person in the organization, they certainly would have paid for it - so why not pay an intern.

Another argument that drives my up the wall: They come from very wealthy families and these kids don't need the money! Well, horse feathers! So, if a young man or woman comes from a wealthy family, that means their time is worthless? Hmmm. If the person is poor, their time is worth more? What happened to equal treatment? What happened to blind justice? What happened to US law?

I will concede that IF a student decides to work for a non-profit that really doesn't have a lot of money to pay anyone, and IF the student doesn't need the money, and the work is largely charitable - like working for the Peace Corps for a summer, or working in a soup kitchen at a homeless shelter - then a non-paying internship might make sense. Other than that, everyone deserves to be paid for their time and effort. Especially if that work is making money for someone else.