Internships were, at their inception, a way for companies to introduce students and other unqualified professionals into the workforce. They have long been unpaid positions, although there are internships that are paid. However, in recent years, the economy has taken a turn for the worse, and companies have been offering unpaid internships to college students and recent graduates in lieu of a true position with the company.Unpaid internships certainly have their place in the business world, but there are problems with offering unpaid internships to college students and recent graduates. College students are often saddled with large amounts of debt, and any internship that they can acquire is usually one that requires quite a bit of menial labor (Greenhouse 2010).
When a job involves manual or menial labor, Greenhouse (2010) writes, the company in question has a duty to the individual to provide them with compensation; unpaid internship laws only protect a company when that organization is getting no material gain from the work of an intern. Greenhouse (2010) writes, “’If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law’ Ms. Leppink said many employers failed to pay internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfiedAmong those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer ‘derives no immediate advantage’ from the intern’s activities” (Greenhouse 2010). In short, companies are frequently using interns as unpaid menial labor, something that clearly violates the spirit of the law that was written to protect internships and their place in the workforce.
Today, moral standards are set so that unpaid internships are seen as part of the process that almost all new graduates must go through to find a place in the workforce. However, these internships are, by and large, exploitative, and are therefore not moral in any sense of the word (Velasquez 1982). Velasquez suggests that morality is the judge of what is right and wrong, but that moral standards are the “norms” regarding the things people consider to be right and wrong (Velasquez 1982). Because the unpaid internship has become a norm in American society, it can be assumed that the unpaid internship is therefore seen as morally right and acceptable. However, upon closer inspection, the unpaid internship (as it exists in American society) is certainly not something that should be acceptable under current labor standards and laws.
Unpaid interns who face problems in their internship and feel that their internship is unfair are often unable to speak up about the experience. If they cause trouble in their internship, many worry that this will reflect poorly upon them when they go to find work in their chosen field.
The current situation for unpaid internships is morally and legally indefensible. Students are swimming in debt as a result of the financial situation in the country and the rising cost of tertiary education, and jobs out of college are more scarce than ever. Companies that take advantage of students and recent graduates by forcing them to perform non-educational, unpaid labor during the course of their internship are participating in exploitative business practices and should be held accountable.
References
Greenhouse, S. (2010). The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not. The New York Times.
Velasquez, M. (1982). Business ethics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
