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Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

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Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#111

Post by Klinky »

sans-serif wrote: post #99
Klinky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Very few employees in the US make exactly the minimum wage, which is why it's true that minor increases have close to no effect. Keep in mind how many products are imported from third world countries that have poor labor standards & low wages. The current US lifestyle is heavily subsidized by this cheap labor. Additionally here in the US there is often abuse with illegal immigrants who make well below minim…

Intriguingly enough, without outsourced jobs from first-world countries, economic development in the third world would be even slower and labor standards poorer due to the lack of employer competition.

Are you implying a chicken and egg scenario whereby a third-world needs a first-world before it can become a first world? Going by that logic there should have never been a first world country in the first place. Who was the United States' United States?

Much of the third world is the way it is due to a history of instability, violence & repression, not necessarily a lack of well to do business men looking for an opportunity to avoid having to deal with pesky ideals such as labor regulation.

While it's great that Chinese have the option now of working 12+ hour plus days 6 days a week instead of going off & dying in a rice patty field, somehow I doubt philanthropic philosophy is the reason business goes to China.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#112

Post by rmc »

donall wrote: post #51
cturner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a temptation in politics to see patterns and then fit language to it that kind of fits. It's important not to do this, because it ruins the sense of scale. For example, when someone describes a politician they don't like as a "fascist" it's disrespectful to the memory of people who are squashed under tanks and who are taken in the night by state agents, raped and murdered. Along these lines, it doesn't fit to…

when someone describes a politician they don't like as a "fascist" it's disrespectful to the memory of people who are squashed under tanks and who are taken in the night by state agents, raped and murdered. I know this is veering off-topic, but I think it's worth pointing out that not every instance of the word "fascist" is disrespectful and to deny people the right to use it is just as destructive as when it is misu…

More examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#113

Post by tkahn6 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #83
epo wrote: post #57

30-day free trials are for software. People deserve more respect.

But interns aren't producing anything (if they are, it's not an internship). The idea is they are learning. If they are producing things the company then uses to sell, they should get paid. But I've seen interns that literally follow around, take notes, ask questions. So, why should someone be paid for not contributing to the bottom line?

> But interns aren't producing anything (if they are, it's not an internship).

That seems like a false dichotomy.

I'm at an internship right now getting paid quite well and I'm contributing to their bottom line (albeit indirectly since I am working on internal tools). I'm also learning quite a lot.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#114

Post by Produce »

Symmetry wrote: post #105
Produce wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are attempting to understand the impact of a minimum wage from from an intellectual perspective but the map is not the territory. Just as having low taxes and few public services intellectually makes more sense but in reality reduces the quality of life in society, so it is with having a minimum wage. Compare the US and counties like Sweden for evidence. You assume that the minimum wage is there to protect incomp…

You are attempting to understand the impact of a minimum wage from from an intellectual perspective but the map is not the territory. Just as having low taxes and few public services intellectually makes more sense but in reality reduces the quality of life in society, so it is with having a minimum wage. Compare the US and counties like Sweden for evidence. Funny thing about comparing the US and Sweden, the US has a…

I would argue that Sweden does have a minimum wage since, from wiki - "There is no minimum wage that is required by legislation. Instead, minimum wage standards in different sectors are normally set by collective bargaining." I think that having a government lobby for your interests is the same as a collective doing so.

Looking at countries with no minimum wage, or, to put it another way, no formal organisation(s) to lobby for the rights of workers, it is clear that the results are less than savory (hint: the only country this applies to is North Korea) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_countr...

I think that the core issue is that the majority of people expand as much as they can until something stops them, which is why formal agreements are necessary at this stage of humanity's development. Few people are conscious enough to act fairly in the absence of law. I think that the long term solution to creating a society where a minimum wage is not necessary is education and a culture of personal development. When people stop outsourcing their morals to authority, they will make the right decisions.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#115

Post by pessimizer »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #104
pessimizer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2004, a year in which Wal-Mart reported $9.1 billion in profits, the retailer's California employees collected $86 million in public assistance, according to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. [...]In 2004, Democratic staffers of the House education and workforce committee calculated that each 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an average of more than $400,000 a year, based on entitlem…

Bull. The store didn't create the problem. The numbers may be correct; the conclusion is yellow journalism. The store may even help alleviate the problem, by providing Some income for these people. Its not very clever to ask WalMart to just pay these people more; how about UCBerkely show some sincerity and pay them themselves?

The numbers are the only thing that's quoted. The conclusion is that if they paid lower wages, the amount of government support to employed people would rise unless those policies were changed also. Government support paid by taxes, including the taxes of those who work at UCBerkeley.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#116

Post by mitcheme »

synnik wrote: post #101

Wow. We hire almost every intern that works for us, unless they suck. Internships are also normally done pre-graduation from college. It is not a job, it is in exchange for college credit. We hire the day they graduate. But it is also up to the intern to decide whether or not our internship is right for them. A overgeneralized diatribe like the one posted is aiming to get people to not intern at all, whereas the appr…

In my school, we call them "co-op jobs". If you sign up for co-op, you get college credit for them, but either way you get paid. And of course if you're any good, your co-op employers will want to hang onto you after you graduate. I didn't bother signing up for co-op because co-op or no, it's impossible to complete all the other graduation requirements and not have enough credits. So the credits you get from a co-op job are useless. Students pay money to the school to be part of the co-op program, and that's not unusual. Here, it's $400 for a once a week class that teaches you how to make a resume plus an additional ~$100 fee if you find a job, even if you didn't use the school's connections to find it. If your internship results in college credit, its likely that students are actually losing money by working for you. I think that's absurd.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#117

Post by walexander »

I had a paid internship but would have gladly done it unpaid if I had to. I interned at a big name place, so YMMV, but I can say that senior year when I was looking for jobs _no one_ cared about what I did in school and _everyone_ cared what I did at that internship.

You are not going to work there to do slave labor, you're getting bullet points on your resume, mentorship from senior engineers, as well as taking in the business environment which you've probably never seen before.

I hope no college student who can't find another option has decided to stick his nose up at an unpaid internship because of this post.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#118

Post by dkersten »

nicpottier wrote: post #20
dkersten wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a six month (paid) internship when I was in uni and after two weeks of "training", we were pair programming with the fulltime employees. By month three, I was working on core services that are still in use by the company now. So, interns are definitely not always a burden, but I certainly do understand that they often would be, but to be honest, you get what you pay for - if it had been an unpaid internship, I'…

Six months is definitely different, I would agree that in that time you can become effective. In a way you are agreeing though, as you said, it took two months for you to be working on core services, so there is a significant ramp up time. If we are talking about a summer internship then it is questionable whether you will really add more value than extract. This is irrespective of ability level and just the reality…

Well, I was working on core services, together with fulltime employees (pair programming), after the first two weeks and at the time, they did a lot of pair programming anyway. After two months, I was basically working on my own, but I like to think that I added value much sooner.

Having said that, I don't disagree - it definitely does have a rampup time and I don't disagree with that theres a market and value in unpaid internships, especially short term ones - I'm just saying that I also think theres value for employers and candidates alike in paid internships too.

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#119

Post by conjectures »

The problem is part informational. Grads take internships in the _hope_ it will lead to a job. For most it doesn't. Hope is perennial, so more bums can always be found for seats.

Banning them is unlikely in most countries as it's politically unrealistic. Exhorting companies not to do it is unreliable. So not easy to close off intern demand.

Tackling the supply side might be a better bet. The answer might be in educating grads to mentally file internships alongside diet pills and pyramid schemes. Providing alternatives also good (but more difficult).

Re: Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Interships

#120

Post by Klinky »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #107
quanticle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In that setting you have to do one or more of retrain, move somewhere else, start your own business. Except the presence of a minimum wage makes two of those three more difficult than it would otherwise be. Without savings, how do you pay for retraining? Without savings, how do you pay for relocation? Without savings, how do you start a new venture of your own? Without a minimum wage, how does a person on the very b…

Without savings, how do you pay for retraining? One common method is to work for free for a short time, until you gain the skills necessary to perform a new job. Without a minimum wage, how does a person on the very bottom of the social scale accumulate savings? By reducing consumption. Where I live, the GDP per capita is about 40x lower than the US. The top 5% tends to have a standard of living comparable to the bot…

One common method is to work for free for a short time, until you gain the skills necessary to perform a new job.

Luckily food, shelter & transport is free too.

Where I live, the GDP per capita is about 40x lower than the US.

Where exactly do you live & what is the quality of life for those at the bottom?

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