Internships offer students opportunities to gain on-the-job experience and perhaps a job offer. But the expansion of unpaid internships, coupled with a recent federal court decision, has led many interns to question the fairness of this practice.
Government experts estimate that firms take in more than 1 million interns annually, both paid and unpaid, to find new prospective employees while accomplishing necessary, yet often menial, tasks.
According to the research firm Intern Bridge, about half of all internships offered to undergraduates each year are unpaid. While these opportunities offer some benefits, including strengthening one’s resume and potentially obtaining a job offer, courts have recently ruled these benefits, in many cases, are not adequate substitutes for a fair wage.
In a recent suit filed against the Fox Entertainment Group by a former intern, a New York federal judge ruled that the unpaid interns who assisted in the production of the movie Black Swan were entitled to at least minimum wage.
Since this ruling, at least 15 similar suits have been filed on similar grounds against other entertainment companies, including Gawker, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, NBC Universal and the Hearst Corporation. Just last month, Charlie Rose, a prominent talk show host and journalist, agreed to pay approximately $60,000 to unpaid interns to settle a class action lawsuit brought against him and his production company by 189 unpaid interns.
The main argument in these cases has been that interns have been doing the same entry-level work as regular employees but are excluded from pay under the guise of education or job experience.
The United States Department of Labor says unpaid internships are only legal in a for-profit company in the context of an educational training program in which the employer derives no benefit from the work of the intern. The Fair Labor Standards Act outlines the standards used to evaluate the fairness of these working arrangements.
The work of the interns in the Black Swan case was deemed to be worthy of at least minimum wage based on these standards.
Despite this, many experts and students alike say unpaid internships provide useful opportunities and experiences that cannot be found elsewhere.
According to Woody Catoe, assistant director of Student Career Services at N.C. State, internships and other job-related experiences are imperative for those who are interested in a good career, whether they are paid or unpaid.
“Gaining hands-on experience is absolutely essential for those who are taking their career development seriously,” Catoe said. “Employers now expect to see this in resumes. Its primary value is that it shows the employer that a student has validated their career interests in a real work setting.”
Many students attest to the helpfulness of unpaid internships in career development and professional networking.
Hannah Ringley, a senior in fashion and textile management, is currently in London for an unpaid internship with the suiting company Byrne & Burge. Hannah said that so far her work has been rewarding, and she has gained a great deal of experience in pattern drafting, cutting and hand tailoring.
“I’ve been able to work with three different tailors in the industry, and my boss has great connections to the cloth mills and designers in Milan. [The internship will] give me lifetime connections, and I’m learning things that I would never otherwise get to learn in fashion,” Ringley said.
As part of her internship, Ringley helped make a suit for the lead singer of Mumford and Sons, a regular customer of Byrne & Burge. She said experiences like these are hard to come by in her field without a college degree and a good deal of work-related experience.
