This summer, I applied for an internship. It was a paid internship, but unfortunately I wasn’t selected.
This got me thinking: The concept of an “internship” seems to have greatly expanded in the new millennia, especially at the wake of this monumental economic downturn.
With fewer jobs available and more people in on the job hunt, it seems feasible that employers would turn to unpaid interns to accomplish various tasks.
If you’re in college, you probably have either held an internship position or are aspiring to hold one.
A recent CNN article by Alex Footman endeavors to define the concept of an intern and ends with Footman and co. filing a lawsuit against the company for which they were interning.
To be more precise, Footman states that he wants the following: “... to see more laws to protect those who work for free. Better yet, we want to see more self-regulation from employers so that the burden of enforcement won't have to weigh down on the people with the least bargaining power.”
Let’s examine this for a second.
He’s downright wrong about this “burden of enforcement.”
Interns, of course, do have a bargaining chip against such employment requirements: How about choosing not to intern for the said business and ending any business relationship with that employer?
If you, as an intern, feel that a company is using you incorrectly, you always have the option of leaving if the company refuses to change. Period. Since there is no fiscal exit cost, it’s ludicrous to argue an intern doesn’t have this power. He does. At all times.
Don’t berate an employer for taking advantage of free labor if you, as an intern, willingly offer it to them. In comparison, that would be like if a baseball player signed with a team for free and then complained when the coach put him in the batter’s box. It doesn’t work like that.
But let’s take his bogus assessment further.
Essentially, this article is a call for government to define the concept of internship to every business who hires interns, and to specifically differentiate between mediums of employment.
How ridiculous!
Every business is different and every internship position is different.
This is completely improbable and will serve to inevitably further America’s bloated, federal-regulation database.
Yet with a recent court ruling, a federal judge in Manhattan officially penalized businesses for staffing unpaid interns, effectively telling America that interns are too stupid to leave when they feel they aren’t getting their “money’s worth,” and so desperate for income that they turn to the government to award them with retribution.
It shouldn’t be this complicated, and government shouldn’t have to get involved.
Interns just need to become better consumers. An internship is just a temporary position that assists you in achieving a future goal. It’s as simple as that. If you feel you’re being “abused” or forced to work like a regular paid worker, then quit.
Leave all the negotiations between the laborer and the employer.
Get the federal government out of business, and force interns to become better consumers. Force them to make decisions about employment and labor by themselves and stop claiming that they’re being taken advantage of, against their own wills.
It’s simply not true.
Reach this columnist at spmccaul@asu.edu or follow him on twitter at @sean_mccauley
