Posted by elektros (other posts) on February 07, 2014 at 14:02:00 Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: Internship Interviews posted by Bill on February 07, 2014 at 01:20:43:
: : There is so much abuse of the intern system there is a movement
: : to abolish it.
: : Intern = slavery.
: : Interns are supposed to be learning something. The reality is they end up doing grunt work like getting coffee, lunch, etc.
: : Look very carefully before jumping into any internship.
: I would agree. They did not have internships back when I was in college. This meant that if companies wanted students to do work, or to get to know students for future hiring by having them do work, that they had to PAY THEM. In my generation, many of us paid for our college educations with summer, weekend, and evening work. Internships, which allow companies to get students to work for nothing or nearly nothing, supplant paying jobs for students that would otherwise be there. To my eye, internships are just one more way that the rich have come up with to plunder the poor and the middle classes. The existence of internships, coupled with the current unwillingness to subsidize public college education, have together made it nearly impossible for a youth to get a college education on his own. It makes me very sad to see how tough it is for kids nowadays to get such an education.
: Bill
In my country (England) they don't have internships because they would be illegal! And BTW the minimum wage is $10.23 an hour (subject to changes in exchange rates).
Recently it has been pointed out that US labor law (we would say labour!) has similar provisions, and unpaid interns in the US have sued for back pay and won, according to some news sources. It is possible they may have had to show that they were just used as free labour and not trained, but that isn't necessarily all that difficult. A worthy pro bono pursuit for a retired lawyer, eh Bill? LOL!