Internships can be the gateway to a career in a competitive profession or the 21st century form of slavery. College students who hope to work their way into their dream careers have literally been worked to death.
A good internship at a reputable company should be a win-win for the firm and the student. At an ideal internship the company gets a bright, committed student which will contribute in a meaningful way. Students are able to learn relevant skills from experienced professionals, live the culture of the industry and earn a leg up on other college graduates at application time. Though internships are generally temporary and part-time, an ethical company provides a small stipend for expenses or even a part-time salary.
Unpaid internships, though often rich with valuable experience, can also be highly exclusionary. Affluent students who do not have to worry about rent, food and maintenance on transportation are able to accept unpaid internships, while lower-income students often cannot afford to accept them because they have to work. Students from the poverty and working classes too often cannot afford to grab the first rung on the ladder of success.
Unpaid internships can also be abusive. There has been a recent wave of lawsuits against companies in New York. A collective of former unpaid interns filed a $5 million lawsuit against NBCUniversal. Their claim is that the financial success of the company is reliant on an army of unpaid or underpaid interns. They were denied the benefits of paid employees, yet were put to work the same way. The case is pending.
Many businesses depend heavily on the free labor. Unpaid interns have been used to replace the entry-level workers in too many unscrupulous companies.
Lawsuits have also questioned the definition of internships, which is vague. Interns who are merely coffee-runners, filers and proprietors of menial tasks are not learning about the profession. Employers are taking advantage of the interns’ eagerness and energy by dangling the keys to the door in front of them. Some interns leave with no applicable knowledge or experience.
Fortunately, many big name technology companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon do it right and pay their interns. Facebook, in fact, pays more than $6,000 monthly to its interns, provides gym access and three meals a day. While that is an interning panacea, there is a good lesson here. Tech companies lure the best and the brightest from our elite universities by treating interns well. It also speaks to the integrity and ethics of the company.
On the other end of the scale are the cruel and exploitive practices of some law firms and investment banks where unpaid interns can labor anywhere from 60 to 80 hours a week. Moritz Erhardt, 21-year-old intern at Bank of America, died shortly before his internship ended from exhaustion and malnutrition. Following the death, Bank of America announced it was looking into the affects the long hours and hazardous work conditions have on young employees. Hmm, seems the answer to that question is—they kill people.
Bank of America and other abusive companies are engaging in modern day slavery. Working someone to death is an astonishing act of barbarism, particularly from a wealthy corporation with an enormous profit margin.
Southwestern College tries to protect students from the Bank of Americas of the world and provide college credit via its interning class called Cooperative Work Experience Education (CWEE). Students who have declared a major can earn up to 16 units through this program.
CWEE strives to help students crack the conundrum, “How do I get a job without experience and how do I get experience without a job?” When the answer is an unpaid internship, some students are automatically excluded. The poor get poorer.
Professors at SWC by and large do a commendable job steering students into valuable internships and away from usury work-for-free situations. We appreciate the wisdom our caring professors show because we are still earning ours.