Posted on 04/06/2010 8:11:56 PM PDT by JohnRLott
The Obama administration's top law enforcement officer at the Labor Department, M. Patricia Smith, is targeting companies that give young people unpaid internships. She claims that internships are rife with abusive practices and that serious violations of labor law are widespread. Arguing that interns should get paid at least minimum wage, Ms. Smith and the White House risk destroying a valuable steppingstone that gives many young Americans training they need to get jobs they want in the future.
Unpaid internships are valuable for many reasons. Most simply, they help people test whether they are a good fit for a particular industry. If interns like the type of work at particular companies, internships can help them get the training and contacts they need to make their career aspirations a reality. The short time that interns spend at jobs - often just two to three months - makes it difficult for firms to both train these young people and get much work out of them. From manufacturing to nonprofits to media companies such as The Washington Times, hands-on opportunities open through internships are almost endless. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Wow, you’d find Ayn Rand a communist.
“It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.”
“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.”
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”
Apparently in some fields, the market value of internship labor is the experience and skills gained plus whatever sub-minimum-wage stipend (if any) is paid by the company. If this were not the case, then the providers of the labor would take their labor and provide it to someone else who is willing to pay the “market” price that you are saying these companies are withholding.
There are some on this thread who are agreeing with the obama administration that the existence in the market of these internships equals slavery. Based on your comments on this thread, it sounded to me as if you were one of them. These posters asserted that companies should be required to pay at least minimum wage for all internships.
You state that I am arguing that people providing the commodity of labor should not be paid for it. I have argued no such thing. I have consistently argued that in some cases the market value of the commodity of labor provided by interns is equal to the value of the experience and skills they acquire in the internship. Once a force outside the market (e.g. government, unions, community organizers, or self-proclaimed market conservatives on posting boards) starts to force companies to pay some arbitrary wage in addition to the market value of the work being provided then those advocacy forces cannot truthfully claim to support the basics of a free market. The bottom line is: if you agree with Obama and the other posters on this thread that companies should be REQUIRED to pay more for internships than what the market is allowing them to pay now, then you favor government intervention rather than free markets.
As Ayn Rand says, “Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.”
You’d argue otherwise. If there is value in the work an intern does, then pay for it. The intern can then use it to pay for the training.
That way, the intern can see the tangible value he provides and judge whether or not the training the company provides is worth the cost.
Furthermore, the company would then be obligated to actually provide training, as they have taken payment for it. Which would eliminate any chance for companies to simply use interns as unpaid temps.
Glad you’re here to offer these solutions to guide the invisible hand when it needs help getting to the place that you consider to be optimal fairness and provide the proper obligations and prevent buyers and sellers of labor from reaching mutually agreeable arrangments that you consider to be unfair.
Hah, I’m just putting into words the unspoken voice of the free market. Too bad nobody listens anymore.
Just like our problem with oil. G-d forbid anyone increase supply when demand increases.
This is the government... they pay “volunteers”. The government is the last source we should look to for making economic policies and business decisions.
Reminds me of the classical radio station that was run by volunteers and the government shut them down for it.
We must OUTLAW volunteerism while we are at it.
>> If somebody works, they ought to get paid for it. I’ve got no problem with this.
Really?
Maybe those interns should be the sponsor for training and experience?
Good grief!
That is a lot of lost opportunities for young people to learn. Say bye bye to these poisitions, destroyed by government fiat.
Meanwhile how do you feel about High Schools requiring kids to VOLUNTEER for stuff? unpaid work? slavery!
>> I’m not much into slave labor.
Nice try - it ain’t slave labor. It’s called opportunity.
>> Gene Eric: Maybe those interns should be the sponsor for training and experience?
should be -> should pay
Here's the facts of life: if the interns did not see the training and opportunity to be worth putting in a month or two of unpaid labor, they wouldn't apply for the internship.
The alternative is for the company to take them on as part-time temporary workers (minimum wage, no benefits) doing bottom-rung menial tasks (mopping floors, sorting mail, etc). Then for maybe a few hours per week they get put down the mop and spend a couple of hours doing what they would like to base their careers on. After a year, they either get promoted to doing what they want, or they get laid off.
Do you see that as an improvement over an unpaid one or two month internship?
The point of an internship is to allow an opportunity to examine the candidate over time, to see if he's going to fit in and be worth hiring. It's a natural consequence of current discrimination and "wrongful termination" laws, which make hiring somebody a risk, unless you can verify ahead of hiring that he will work out.
All that volunteer crap is just that .. "crap". Let me not be so unkind, if we're to be a nation of serfs then I guess it's ok. In a capitalist nation, however, anyone who works for free is being taken advantage of.
Regardless of the nature of the system, though, this coerced volunteerism in the schools must be criminally devastating to self-esteem.
Anyone who chooses to work for free, by their own decision, is being taken advantage of?
Please refer to the definition of the word "coerced".
He's not talking about the unpaid internships that college guys voluntarily apply for to get experience. He's talking about the unpaid "volunteer" work which high school kids are mandated to perform as a precondition to getting their diplomas.
Actually, the fact is that the prospective intern doesn't know what the job will be like until they get there. After all, if they did know the job, they wouldn't be needing the internship in the first place...
...for they'd already know the skills.
(Well, unless you back my assertion that in some careers, people can only get hired on in permanent positions if they undergo unpaid internships, regardless of their level of skill.)
The point of an internship is to allow an opportunity to examine the candidate over time, to see if he's going to fit in and be worth hiring. It's a natural consequence of current discrimination and "wrongful termination" laws, which make hiring somebody a risk, unless you can verify ahead of hiring that he will work out.
The 'wrongful termination' laws need to be seriously revamped... no argument there.
Anyone that chooses to work for free chooses to be a slave. Whether they are a happy slave or not is irrelevant.
I prefer to be the master in those types of situations. IE - I'm happy to take your free labor. (Come to think of it, how could I get the government to require everyone to give me their free labor, hmmm...)
:-P
And that's rational if one or more of three things is true:
1) The company needs time to evaluate if the prospective employee is right for the job.
2) The employee needs time to see if the company is right for him. (If he decides not and quits after a few weeks, the training spent on him would be wasted, and his net value to the company would be zero).
3) The job is of such low value, that only a salary of essentially zero makes it viable to place a person into it (in which case the intern SERIOUSLY needs to re-evaluate his career choices!)
In real life, if a person doing a job results in products that make money for the company, then companies will compete with each other to get good people to place in the position. My daughter in college has done internships. They all paid her decent money.
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