Summer Opportunities for Indentured Servitude

[phantom power]

The Times is keeping debate over unpaid internships percolating with a piece that could have been ghostwritten by the folks at Stuff White People Like. The article looks at how the Obama administration’s shift toward stricter enforcement of minimum-wage laws is hurting honest, hard-working rich kids who can’t find a place to perform indentured servitude anymore. Most irritating, it features a quote from the CEO of an entrepreneurial group that refutes any qualms about unpaid internships with a neat libertarian meme: “I was an unpaid intern and I had no problem with it.”

Which is just a slightly fancier way of saying, “I got mine, who cares about you?”

...

But this ignores the legions of kids who get shut out of unpaid internships altogether because they fail the means test. These students, many of whom are just as capable as their more affluent counterparts, can’t forgo a summer’s wages at the pool or local TGI Friday’s to take an internship where their only pay is measured in “valuable experience.” Unpaid internships may expedite the climb up the employment ladder for students from relatively wealthy, well-connected families, but for others it just knocks out the bottom rungs altogether.

After years of serious collective-action problems among unpaid interns, who benefited from the status quo and were loath to earn reputations as troublemakers, we’re finally seeing an outcry over unpaid internships. Millennials, faced with an anemic economy and a bleak job scene, are rebelling against slave labor that seems to be getting them nowhere. Mushrooming college tuition is also to blame -- after all, you usually have to pay for the college credits that accompany internships. The fact of the matter is that now even the wealthiest of college students have been given a harsh dose of reality over the last few years, making the "I did it and you can too" meme ring hollow.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=07&year=2010&base_name=opportunities_for_indentured_s

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. If you're looking for political leadership to step up...good luck

http://www.ehow.com/how_2106420_be-congressional-intern.html

just sayin'

[formercia]

2. The last time we ate out, our waitress was from the Ukraine.

She was just here to make some money for the Summer. Big tourist industry here in Maine and it's difficult for establishments that hire only seasonal staff to get reliable help, so it's off to the old Soviet Union for the Labor Pool.

BTW, she gave us great service and deserved the 30%+ tip I gave her.

Lazy rich kids just want to hang around and collect a check.

[LiberalEsto]

3. There's no such thing as an entry-level job in Wash DC

Here in the nation's capital:

1. Beginners start as unpaid interns.

2. If you're not a bright young college student, you're unlikely to get considered for an internship.

3. If you don't have a family to cover your living expenses, forget about interning.

4. If you need to earn money for college, forget about interning.

5. And if you're a 58-year-old female college grad looking for a part time job in this area, don't think for a moment that anyone will hire you for an internship.

Interns are free labor in the Washington DC scheme of things.

[phantom power]

4. What I think is most interesting (and and also morally wrong) is...

that it's more than just free labor. It's most important feature/function is that it perpetuates a sort of caste system. Only people from families with sufficient economic status to support a stint of unpaid labor can gain entry into this ecosystem.

Yet another way "The Village" maintains itself in a big bubble. You can't even get into the system unless your family is essentially already inside that bubble.

Bad. Very bad. Does not auger well for our fearless leaders solving our problems.

[LiberalEsto]

5. You're right about the caste system. nt