Obama eyes interns: Democrats move to deny useful job training to young workers

Washington Times ^ | April 7, 2010 | Editorial

[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. . . .

[gogogodzilla]

Because you are destroying the very concept of capitalism with this.

There is a free market for labor, where employers looking for labor meet people needing money. The employer then ‘buys’ the persons labor - ie: hires them.

Internships kick that to the curb... for companies no longer need to follow the free market on labor. They can instead, now... simply demand, like a feudal lord, free labor. Which then leads to viewing their workforce like serfs.

We spent centuries trying to lose that pernacious evil, only to have it come right back? To find supposed conservatives - people who are supposed to champion the free market - eagerly embracing the idea of extracting free labor from people... well, to say the least, it’s *HIGHLY* disturbing.

Now, I’ve got no problem if you *WANT* to volunteer your time and effort, but it should not *EVER* be expected or demanded from you as a prerequisite.

---

Just as an aside, Kim Jong-Il expects his people to contribute their time and labor learning how to farm every year, without pay. I guess they’re just all on a farm internships?

[Mamzelle]

re: You guys (and Obama) are being idiots. You are ignoring "free will" (as pointed out by another freeper), and are helping cause the elimination of a whole class of learning.)))

Not idiots, trolls. Obama is always finding new ways to grow the underclass.

[Milton Miteybad]

For the basic tenant (sic; probably should read "tenet") of the labor market is that work = pay.

In cases such as these, the intern is taking their pay in the form of experience gained. Your primary error here is in somehow concluding, all present evidence to the contrary, that raw interns fresh out of school can actually make a meaningful contribution to a going concern that returns value to the firm above and beyond the cost of the time and effort invested in training them. Such would be an exceedingly rare occurrence, if it has ever happened at all.

There's something else you may want to understand. Many of the youngsters asking for internships are well aware that they are asking the firm to do them a favor by bringing them on, even at zero pay. Some fully realize that they will cost the firm money even if they themselves don't draw a paycheck for a while. Many will elect to take advantage of the opportunity just for the experience; others who really need the money will do well to find other opportunities.

And that's really the basic tenet of the free labor system: Being able to accept or reject an offer of work from an employer according to one's needs/goals/desires at the time. If a newly minted graduate doesn't need a paycheck right away, but wants to gain badly needed experience in lieu thereof, why should he or she be prohibited from reaching such an arrangement with a prospective employer?

[jerry557]

That’s fine just as long as the company is not replacing paid workers with unpaid interns. That’s actually illegal already in some states.

And minimum wage is too high? What do you think it should be?

[goodnesswins]

Minimum wage should NOT be a “living wage”...it creates a situation where adults are competing for jobs with high school and college kids who can work for less (and should). It’s an artificial rate. Not to mention all the gov’t intervention which has cut students totally out of work (safety, work hours, type of work, etc.)

[Bhoy]

Literally. No joke.

[jasonnfree]

I offered to work for free for an electrician once to get experience for when I would one day build my own house. After a while he started paying me without me asking. Seems a good alternative to trade schools which run into thousands. Instead of paying tuition you’re working off in work.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The key to that, as with schooling, is that it is a limited time enterprise. A free market itself will work around the problem if it becomes “too” widespread. There should be no law either establishing or forbidding it.

[JDW11235]

Yep, aprenticing is very similar to interning.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Or even with another firm in the same field.

[AZLiberty]

The students are being paid -- in experience.

[AZLiberty]

just another Democrat POTUS trying to screw interns

Well said.

[Semperfiwife]

So all those interns in DC working free for Senators will have to be paid with our taxes????

[Semperfiwife]

So all those interns in DC working free for Senators will have to be paid with our taxes???? We would have to pay people like Monica Lewinsky???? Give me a break.

[BenKenobi]

I disagree.

The problem isn’t that there are too many internships, the problem is that there are too few.

First off, my labour is my own. I can choose whether I want to get paid for it or not at all. If I choose to tutor a student out of the goodness of my own heart, that is my right.

You might say that it is unfair to other tutors that I would not charge for my labour, but again, it is my choice to offer my time and expertise.

If there were more apprenticeships and more internships, there would be more jobs. This is why Obama is attacking them, because if they are gone, he can make people more reliant on the state.

If a person wishes to sell his labour for the experience of on the job training, then we should encourage him to do so. If a person wishes to not engage in an internship, then he should not do so.

Has no one watched the “pursuit of happyness”? The key stepping stone up and out of the dead-end was the internship with a stockbroker.

You can be sure if Obama is ag’in it, we should be fur it.

[Nailbiter]

Obamas eyes interns,,,,,,,, completely different meaning than last poser in office

[The Duke]

Does that change your mind at all?

Well, I'm no rich guy (even by Democrat standards), but I couldn't look myself in the mirror each morning if I didn't pay the interns that work for me. In fact, the first lesson I think any intern should learn is "my time has value".

[HiTech RedNeck]

When the initiative to pay them is on YOUR side, that’s grand.

Anyhow, people will quit interning if the process becomes so taxing that they cannot see an overall gain from it. As long as the gummit keeps its grubby little fingers out of the picture.

[JDW11235]

I agree with how you feel. Though, as a lifelong learner, I’ll take someone willing to teach me without cost over paying to learn anyday. I think the government has no business making these lives miserable (and it will), but then again, I don’t agree with most government regulation, because it generally harms those it’s supposed to help. minimum wage increases, and those under 25 have about a 50% unemployment rate (IIRC). Government intervention seldom... if ever...helps.

[JDW11235]

I agree, and only 7 second later, lol.