Thursday, September 30, 2021
Over 40% of Interns Are Unpaid Thanks to This Legal Loophole
www.businessinsider.com: Unpaid internships are not only legal in the US — they're shockingly common.
More than 40% of interns said they were unpaid in this year's Internship & Co-op Survey Report conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
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While over 40% of internships are unpaid, even more are paid extremely low wages. While some theaters cover housing costs or house interns themselves, due to the pandemic I know many theaters that changed their offers and would only bring in interns who could find their own housing or lived in the area. I lost an internship due to this exact issue. For people who can’t afford to pay rent without a steady income or can’t live with family or friends in the area, they are forced out of these opportunities. The person in the article that is working 8 hour days at their internship without pay would have to either have money saved up or be working another job, depriving themselves of sleep and free time. The “primary beneficiary test” seems very subjective and heavily favors the employee; the laws need to change for interns to be fairly compensated, no matter who they work for.
Unpaid internships are a problem across industries in this country, but abuse of labor standards laws in the entertainment industry is especially egregious. The problem of unpaid and underpaid internships has been well litigated over the last few years, and it's a massive problem, but I don't think I really have anything new to say on the topic. But the rampant abuse even outside the specific bounds of internships gets a little less attention. Another article I just read was about abuses of overtime in film and tv, where fees for running through meal breaks and going over daily hour caps or through rest periods are just budgeted into productions, which is just not the point of those protections, and creates very dangerous conditions. And even more widespread and less recognized is the misclassification of employees and widespread abuse of overtime-exempt positions. Employees can only be considered salaried (one of the two requirements to be overtime exempt) if they meet a certain pay threshold, which many positions in the industry don't, and the creative practice exemption that pretty much means that artists aren't subject to overtime rules is...kinda fucked up in the first place.
Internships are some of the most common ways that workers are heavily exploited in America. The fact that the work done by interns is measured in such qualitative ways like the “primary beneficiary test”. It reminds me very much of a large company hiring a designer or artist with the promise of “exposure” instead of any actual compensation. These ideas of “exposure”, “work experience”, and “resume building” are key reasons why internships remain unpaid. America’s hiring practices are heavily dependent on these factors, but in reality, these don’t put food on the table. The idea of internships is inherently classist and gives people who are able to afford working for free an advantage in applying for work. I, myself, have participated in this and feel like my internships and experience were some of the only reasons I did things like make in into cmu and gain more work experience. This gives me a huge advantage against others along with other factors. It just adds to the inherently unfair practices in the job market.
It’s so disappointing that companies are still willing to exploit young workers in the name of education. Even in the theatre world there is still a lot of exploitation of younger workers trying to get their foot in the door in larger theatre companies. It seems like the bigger the company the more likely they are to exploit worker because they think that they can get away with it easier because of their reputation. It seems to be a battle of legal vs. ethics. Because they know they can get away with it, they are going to do it because that means more profit for the, but they are ignoring the ethical thing to do. In another article, the author mentions how many interns are overworked by their companies and expected to do as much work as the full-time employees, all for the sake of “education”
Internships run a lot of the industries in America. By allowing companies to profit off of not paying employees living wages or any wages at all we are setting a precedent for corporations to continue this exploitative work. In theatre, this is a huge problem considering how much of ourselves we pour into our work. Not being paid for our work as an intern is a way in which theatre companies are able to achieve free labor which of course is valuable to them. In turn, the intern gets to put the experience on their resume and hopefully get a paying job, which is not guaranteed. The idea that it depends on who benefits more from the job, the employer or the employed is absurd to me. I fully believe that if you are not both benefiting from the relationship then the job is not necessary. This relationship also implies that being an intern and a student simultaneously is quite common. This means that it is virtually impossible to have an additional job outside of the internship and class which further increases the gap between those who can afford college and those who have to work hard to get there.
It seems the solution to this type of issue is to not take unpaid internships and therefore make those companies have to pay. That doesn’t necessarily work for low-paid jobs because people need money, but if you’re not getting paid then the only thing that keeps you there is the “experience.” You can get “experience” all over the place in exchange for money. The thing is you have to successfully reach the people who don’t need the money and tell them that if they take an internship for free, they’re hurting others as well. This test that the article talks about of whether or not the company is benefiting from your work, seems to be taken advantage of. Unless they’re actually detracting from productivity (I.E. School) they should probably be paid. I also like that the federal government took a stance setting the bar for no unpaid interns. You’re labor is worth money.
I personally have never worked an unpaid internship but have had multiple paid internships. The article mentions that one factor of the test is ensuring the intern knows that the internship is unpaid, at the time of taking it. It is important the companies are fully transparent with a prospective intern if they have no plan of paying them. However, I feel like I wouldn’t take an interview without knowing the pay scale, let alone start an internship without knowing whether it is. Often, paid interns are often underpaid and exploited as well. One company I worked for left me to train MFA Students who made a higher hourly than I did. In any industry, it is important to learn the importance and value of your work. However, in the arts industry when so many people are looking to exploit and profit off of young, eager, artists. I. would argue that there is no skill more valuable than the ability to self-advocate
One of the reasons that internships can get away with this is that anyone who is seeking an unpaid internship is doing so in the belief that it will lead to an actual job but cannot afford to advocate for themselves. Anyone who has the means to advocate for themselves wouldn’t be in a position to need an unpaid internship since they most likely already have the connections that a job like that would give. Shocking how the least able to defend themselves from being taken advantage of are the ones that a capitalistic society can, and at least 40% of the time, does. There are also the jobs that are compensated but do so at such a low rate that only people who are able to support themselves without that job are the ones who can afford to take them. That is just another form of gatekeeping where employers want to make it so the “right” people get the job.
This article highly spoke to me as someone who has been skimming for jobs and will soon be applying to internships over the summer. Just yesterday I was talking to a few friends about how society accepts unpaid internships as learning opportunities, yet fails to acknowledge how said learning opportunity could be better improved through the added benefit of making money. I mean, wether we want to accept it or not, we live in a world where money matters. Face it, as members of the School of Drama, we’ve all heard the phrase: “Wait, you’re studying theatre?” And, at times, kind of reconsidered the career path we have selected. Making money is hard and while any opportunity offers a new lesson or series of skills to develop, it would be great to combine both as kill two birds with one stone. In other words, the educational benefits do not necessarily outweigh the heavy work hours (and often workload) with no pay.
It's so annoying that all these little loopholes exist for companies who have more than enough resources to compensate their interns. It's crazy that interns on Capital Hill went from $0 to $1800/month as a minimum, proving that it's possible to pay. I was talking to some students who are computer science majors at CMU who make great money, which is comparable to the employees of those companies. Granted, big tech probably has a lot more money than theatre, but this means that the company sat down and budgeted for the labor of interns who are providing a valuable asset to their company. Another issue that goes along with this is that event when interns are paid, it's usually at a depressingly low amount that hardly correlates with the extensive hours put in. CMU has some decent resources for this, like the Summer Internship Experience Fund, but there's only so much of that resource to go around.
Reading that over 40% of internships in the United States are still unpaid is so disheartening to see. There is this gross notion in American capitalism that believes you must “earn” experience before compensation which is not only illegal in a lot of instances, but incredibly inequitable and immoral. We are seeing more and more interns being given more responsibilities not only in the live entertainment industry, but every industry. Young adults are so hungry for education and success that they are forced to work for free when a company has more than enough money to pay them. Personally, I would never be able to accept an unpaid internship because I can not afford to not be paid, and I would never want to work for a company that does not value their interns. I really hope that the Department of Labor starts to crack down on unpaid internships and companies start seeing the value of interns.
I think the ‘primary beneficiary test’ is so biased and using that to determine whether interns are paid are not is just ridiculous. But as the article mentions, companies are protected because interns sign their contracts knowing that their jobs are unpaid. I think the problem is that the companies know that by using terms such as ‘learning opportunities’ on their recruiting advertisements, there will be endless numbers of interns applying. What they need is not skilled workers with experiments, they just need people to do the easy daily errands that no experienced workers are willing to do. When I interned, I was very lucky to have worked in a company that was close to home and offered meals. I didn’t have to pay for transportation, housing or meals because my parents are able to pick me up everyday. However, I am fully aware that the minimum wage (which is what I had) will not be able to support those who are not as privileged. But to be fair, I think the bigger problem still lies within the law system that have unfair regulations with loopholes.
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