Young, unpaid and angry: interns go online to campaign for a wage

[alp227]

Source: The Observer

Famous high street businesses, including Topshop and the recruitment specialist Reed, are being named and shamed by an internet campaign targeting the rise of unpaid and very low paid internships that, it is claimed, is undermining the link between pay and work.

Topshop, the star performer in Sir Philip Green's £2.7bn Arcadia retail empire, is exposed for paying graduates on month-long work experience secondments just £3.50 a day plus limited travel expenses.

Urban Outfitters, the American clothier with stores in a dozen cities around the UK, has been attacked for advertising a nine-month unpaid internship in their merchandising department for people who are "hardworking, organised able to multi-task".

And Reed, one of the country's largest job agencies, has been nicknamed "Greedy Reed" for having advertised 46 unpaid internships within its company, variously described as "intern receptionist", "intern executive assistant" and "secretarial admin internship". The adverts were recently taken down after the company was reminded by the campaign of the obligations of the national minimum wage legislation introduced in 1999. There is no legal definition of an "intern", and the law says that anybody who qualifies as a worker must be paid at least £6.08 an hour if aged 21.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/09/young-unpaid-angry-interns-campaign-for-wage

[Cal Carpenter]

1. Good for them

'Internships' have come to mean little other than unpaid (or barely paid) labor.

Anyone working deserves a living wage, particularly for profitable businesses.

[tblue37]

3. And the slimy businesscreeps seem to collude

in creating a large pool of unpaid but highly skilled labor by requiring internships on a resumé before they will even consider hiring anyone.

[Mr Deltoid]

2. Slave labor is the new capitalism

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. All unpaid/barely paid internships need to be boycotted.

Those internships have been abused so much they no longer serve a legitimate purpose, IMHO.

[2Design]

5. this is norm in usa too - getting college kids from both here and abroad to work for nothing or litt

little under the guise it will look good on their resume

[Cal Carpenter]

6. And soon enough too many of them will learn

that their degree and their internship-filled resume are worthless, but their student loans at 24% interest are still coming due.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Unpaid internships were originally a means of weeding out people who actually needed the money

When I was at an Ivy League grad school, I saw national magazines and newspapers and Wall Street brokerages advertising for unpaid interns, i.e. young people who could afford to work summers for free AND live in New York City while attending an Ivy League university.

[Lucky Luciano]

8. Nowadays Wall St internships are well paid actually.

It does motivate the interns to want that job - makes them taste what could be theirs if they impress.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. There are still plenty of unpaid ones, and they tend to weed out anyone

whose family isn't wealthy.

[Lucky Luciano]

11. false re the wealthy families. Not sure about unpaid..but plenty of people I know made $4-8K/mo.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Maybe not on Wall Street, but there are still are unpaid internships

in companies that could well afford to pay at least minimum wage.

[IndyPragmatist]

9. A real internship gets you college credit

I was unpaid in an internship, but it gave me 3 credit hours (so $1,000) and they offered me a full time position 3/4 through my internship.

My school worked with a lot of companies and organizations to ensure that all interns at least got something. But it is crazy to call it an internship and provide no compensation at all.

[exboyfil]

13. Student teaching works that way

Which always begs the question why would anyone want to pay $8K/yr for 4-5 years for tuition (our going rate here in my state) to get a degree in which they do not pay you.

Internships should fall under minimum wage laws.

[Mimosa]

14. Slave labor. *sad* n/t