During my first internship at a newspaper, an editor asked me, "Would you walk into a butcher shop and ask the butcher for free meat?"
"No, I don't think so," I replied, confused by his question.
"So who in their right mind would think it's okay to ask a writer for free words?"
Although the paper had a small budget, he gave me a modest stipend for each article. It wasn't about the money; it was about what the money represented: respect for a person's time and energy.
I took his career advice to heart and never worked for a company that didn't value its employees enough to pay them.
From the US Department of Labor, an unpaid internship is legal only if all of these criteria are met (and I quote):
1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.
Labor laws in the United States were hard won, and we should not forget this. Along with minimum wage laws, they benefit all of us who must work to maintain our lives. So expecting someone to provide you free labor with no compensation for their efforts is not only immoral, it's illegal. If you work, you deserve to get paid. If you expect someone to work for you, you should be honored to be able to pay them reasonably for their time and effort.
The employer gets free labor. They're not going to report themselves. The unpaid intern gets resume padding. In order to stay competitive with other unpaid interns, they're not going to report the situation.
The people who are screwed the most are the ones that lose their competitive advantage because they can't afford unpaid internships.
I don't know for sure, but these rules may be different for non-profit and governmental entities because those organizations are in a bit of a different class.
My problem isn't necessarily with unpaid interns, but how the industry treats paid interns. Specifically how it seems like the current industry trend is to hire younger engineers as "interns", even though they've graduated university, in order to treat them as trial/probation employees. I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it's frustrating seeing friends be excited that they got a "real programming job" but are hourly, low-benefits, low-job-security that do the same work as their salaried coworkers but happen to be junior enough to be taken advantage of this way.
That does seem rather odd. So what if folks offered a salary but also made it strictly probationary up front. Sort of "You are going to be evaluated after 6 months/a year on the job and if you don't meet our expectations you are out." ?
This was essentially what Google to engineers when I worked there. They worked for generally just under a year, got reviewed, and then if they didn't measure up to the "level" that they had hired in at, they let them go. They were somewhat up front about it if you pressed them. But I didn't meet anyone there who particularly appreciated it when others would hire them and not do the whole 'check in a year' thing.
Most states in the US have at-will employment [0]. They don't even need to state a "probationary" period, they can simply fire anyone if they aren't performing.
> That does seem rather odd. So what if folks offered a salary but also made it strictly probationary up front. Sort of "You are going to be evaluated after 6 months/a year on the job and if you don't meet our expectations you are out." ?
This is exactly how it works here in Australia, for graduate and "normal" positions alike.
3 months probation with minimal notice, option to extend to 6 (but no greater due to workplace regs). Works well and means the employer doesn't have to take you on as a "casual" just to avoid the risk that you might be shit.
take on interns before graduation
if graduating within a year
make hire/no-hire decision by the end of the internship
else
make re-intern decision by the end of the internship
Summer internship is a great recruiting channel for us. If we pay them well (not quite at entry level, admittedly), give them a good experience, and a good evaluation, everyone wins, and their full-time destiny is in their hands.
Hopefully fresh CS graduates are not taking contracting jobs with Bigco! From where I sit, they are in a seller's market and shouldn't take so little.
This is fluff. Unpaid internships are so mainstream there's really no reason to call out Sheryl Sandberg personally for being associated with the practice (as opposed to every big bank in America which have 100x more money and also have unpaid interns). Furthermore, the amount of money the company/CEO has is completely irrelevant to what constitutes a market wage for a position. Sheryl Sandberg can afford to pay interns $100,000/year also, but the job isn't worth that much so no one is outraged that she's not doing it.
Doesn't wash. Just because lots of people are unpleasant doesn't mean that you can't tell individuals that they themselves are unpleasant.
Unpaid internships and the people who support (edit - for support, read offer) them are particularly unpleasant for a number of reasons, the main one being that they are for the most part little more than a test to see if you are from a rich enough background to consider regularly talking to.
Yes, but the only difference is that Sandberg portraits herself as an advocate for work fairness and equality. Therefore I think it is fair game to call her out personally.
Is this internship program unpaid just for women? If not, I don't see how having an internship program constitutes unfairness. If she isn't paying interns unequally, what exactly is hypocritical about her having an internship program?
Presumably she runs a non-profit, which, for better or worse, are frequently graded on value delivered vs. administrative expenses. Paying an intern is an administrative expense.
There is a reason to call out Sandberg. The reason is to point out that this "mainstream" practise is unjust. And that the market should not set the criteria on decency.
You could say that "call[ing] out" Sandberg is unjust to her because, as you say, big banks do it too. However, (a) the injustice, in concrete material terms, is negligible in comparison to the lives of those working without pay, and (b) this logic, it seems to me, would suggest that all prosecution of individuals is fundamentally unjust unless one is able to round up each and every similar violators.
What banks don't pay their interns? By any metric big banks/high finance pay better than tech companies, for interns or salaried. I didn't know anyone who went through finance internships that wasn't paid comfortably.
They often don't for internships (vs Google), but for salaried employees they quickly surpass Google a few years out. More boutique firms and quant funds do have very high paying internships for Masters and PhDs however.
What places don't pay their interns? The quant/algo funds I and my friends interned at all paid 80-100k annualized, and every single person I knew that went into an internship at a big bank got paid 70-80k annualized.
Are we really ready to put Facebook on the level of big banks? Many of those banks have admittedly participated in gangsterism and fraud. I think FB should be held to a somewhat higher standard than the most hated institutions in the US today.
She is absolutely free to pay "market wage." We are free to mock the hell out of her.
Give me a break. How many big corporations have unpaid internships? Yes, it sucks that not everyone is in a position to accept unpaid internships. But pointing fingers at Sheryl Sandberg because her company is doing the same as an untold number of others is disingenuous.
But those other big companies with unpaid internships didn't publish a book about how they believe in empowering individuals (albeit women individuals in this case). Some finger pointing seems warranted in that her company's actions do not match her words...
Empowering women and unpaid internships are not mutually exclusive. In fact, you could say that unpaid internships are extremely empowering, because it gives the prospective employee on the job training that they wouldn't get if they were unemployed.
Well, if Sandberg takes that position in her book then she shouldn't deserve finger pointing I suppose. But since she talks about leveling the playing field in the workforce and fixing the salary gender gap is part of that I'd say she believes that cash money is a key source of empowerment.
"you could say that unpaid internships are extremely empowering"
You can say lots of things. Doesn't make them true. If the prospective employee needs to eat this month, unpaid internships can be as empowering as they like, however the prospective employee will not be able to indulge themselves.
People aren't just pointing fingers at Sheryl. People have been complaining about this at all levels for a very long time and it isn't disingenuous at all.
This really only became news however because Sheryl seems to have got used enough to her bubble that she forgot that the standard practice among many of the rich of filtering out the poor from entrance to organisations is considered to be fairly disgusting by many other people.
In the US, labor laws are pretty clear about when an internship can be unpaid. The position needs to be an experience similar to an academic class for the intern and can't displace a paid position for example. That Facebook post is asking for several specific skills as if it's a job posting, which is a red flag in itself.
In many cases, yes. You cannot have an intern do any activity that would normally fall to a paid worker, if the intern is unpaid. Many companies do have internship programs where they pay interns, and are allowed to do proper work.
I mean, to me, it's that simple. You can abuse the desperation of people needing work, or you can pay a good wage for the work that they do. I consider it a moral good to employ at a sane wage despite the ability to burn others without fallout; for similar reasons, I don't shop at Wal-Mart but will shop at Costco.
Funny, I'll shop at the local Wal-Mart because they pay better than the local grocery store and use much less scummy political tactics. We have some real winners for local business people.
Yikes - that's pretty grim. I live in Massachusetts and we tend to have pretty good local businesses, so I tend to prioritize those, but bulk buying is pretty much the province of Costco (or Sam's, but that's part of Wal-Mart and aren't really any better towards their workers anyway).
I am not sure but I've heard Costco is much better at treating their employees compared to Wal-Mart and other stores. The salaries are higher than the minimum wage.
I might have a problem if it wasn't a high-profile non-profit. And the headline's a bit mis-leading considering how little Sandberg has to do with the hiring.
I object to unpaid internships chiefly because they tend to reinforce privilege. The kid whose family is just getting by doesn't take unpaid internships--he's out working for pay, maybe coding, maybe waiting tables. The kid taking the unpaid internship is generally not getting a bad deal, for his or her family is willing to cover any loss of wages for kid's chance to shuffle papers of Sheryl Sandberg.
(Let me add that this is an objection on principle, not one of resentment; I never heard of such arrangements when I was of an age to be an intern.)
My career was kickstarted by a paid internship. It wasn't much, but it was enough for someone fresh out of high school to get by the the summer -- and build a career out of it.
This seems like BS to me. I can't imagine myself ever accepting an unpaid internship (or any kind of unpaid work. That doesn't mean I wouldn't do charity work, but I'm not accepting a job for nothing). If there are idiots out there who like to work for free, let them.
Also, this is a non-profit, so "volunteering" is just fine. Granted the posting sounds a lot more like a job than charity work, but hey, if they can find people going for it then more power to them.
people generally pay the sminimum they must. rarely is there an exception. I respect those who are responsible for the exceptions, especially those who do it with conviction.
Lol. This is funny. To break into Wall Street, you almost have to have an unpaid internship. If you do well, they offer you a job there. If you don't, they don't. People just WANT to hate Sandberg. An internship is a chance to learn; you aren't entitled to learn at a company. Paid interns are the exception; they are odd. You're used too Google too quickly and clearly don't understand how most industries operate. If you think apprenticing would be more beneficial, call it that. Interning is an opportunity to learn, not to pay rent.
That tells us less about what is normal practice by most businesses and more about how screwed our financial system has become. If I am running an organisation, I want the best people, not just the best people from the group who's parents are wealthy enough to let them not need to work in the first place.
"No, I don't think so," I replied, confused by his question.
"So who in their right mind would think it's okay to ask a writer for free words?"
Although the paper had a small budget, he gave me a modest stipend for each article. It wasn't about the money; it was about what the money represented: respect for a person's time and energy.
I took his career advice to heart and never worked for a company that didn't value its employees enough to pay them.