End of unpaid internships?

unpaid internships are by their nature exploitative. they're exploitative when a firm gets to use undergraduates as free labor. they're exploitative when firms get to use post-grad people as free labor.

o sure, there's the possibility that being exploited as free labor can translate into being exploited in a wage-labor context. why that Magickal Moment on which Capitalist Triumph Depends could interrupt your fetching of coffee or making of photocopies and that Major Connection will take shape over a Networky-type Conversation with one of Your Betters. you just have to be an Eager Beaver or some other shit and know when to Grovel Strategically.

there's also the possibility that you'll be inherit giant dough from a previously unknown relative or get hit by a meteor.

 

Which is more exploitative?

Paying $900 for a three credit course (a low ball average of public universities) to sit in a classroom and be lectured by a professor or grad assistant with theoretical knowledge but perhaps little no practical experience.
or
Paying that same $900 for three credits gained by working in a professional environment in your field of interest, even if the assigned work is only 30% professional and 70% menial?

Or perhaps a mix of both offers the student the broadest exposure and opportunity to learn?

 

I don't understand your desire to consider the issue in strictly either/or terms. Especially since doing so offers no applicable solution to any of the problems considered and it clearly fails to advance the conversation beyond the obvious. Yes, unpaid labor is inherently exploitative just as all labor under capital and any other system that pits profits against wages.

And as we're largely discussing college grads here - most typically holders of substantial credit, having passed through institutions of relatively incredible privilege, hardly the suffers of abject poverty - your quasi-leftist slavery nonsense doesn't float. It also diminishes the very scary reality of precarity.

...

 

i think internship-based classes are something of a joke.
they don't have to be, of course.
maybe it'd be better to create little start-ups using university funds as seed money. i mean, one hears all this blah blah blah about "entrepreneurship" in these degenerate neo-liberal times, so it'd be symmetrical to do such a thing. maybe less a waste of time. on the other hand, it is more realistic that one would hear blah blah blah entrepreneurship blah blah blah while getting coffee for your betters.
besides, with little start-ups, the university could claim to whatever was developed.
win-win, yes?

pay the fucking students. it's not that hard. not everyone comes from a position of economic privilege that enables the aristocratic game of working for nothing (and for free).

perhaps my attitude is shaped by my own experience of working a full time job while carrying a full load of classes as an undergraduate.

 

What if you can't pay them roachboy? I know I sometimes don't have the money to pay myself, neither less another worker. Most small business owners are in the same place as I am when it comes to paying help (paying someone is fucking EXPENSIVE for a business owner). I have the ability, time and skills to teach a student enough in a 10 week program how to become level one tech support (which is often the entry level job that IT companies hire students for). Should I not teach them at all because I can't pay them? If I was a huge business that had the cash to pay these students minimum wage, I would. Does this mean I shouldn't teach at all because of this reason?

When I talk about unpaid internships, I talk about job shadowing in a small redneck town in the south. I'm not in Boston, NYC, Chicago or some other major city. How I do it is how I think it should be done. Short periods of time that the student gain valuable work experience (hands on that you don't get in college) and college credit for their time in the industry. You don't spend a year working a job that is unpaid and when you are done, it's not just a line item on a resume, you gained a skill.

 

i would think the university should pay them in such cases. treat internships like work-study arrangements.

 

As an undergrad, I participated in this type of affair. We worked with private stakeholders and developed a device and method to solve their unique problem, which the university then patented and gave away to the private stakeholders. I learned valuable lessons about IP and how to feel fucked over. Didn't get me a job though.

 

Cable companies in Canada are required by law to spend a few % of earnings on public TV. So each public station in every major city must offer a continual and wide ranging opportunity for unpaid volunteers to learn the craft of TV production.

I volunteered a few days a week on Channel 10 Oshawa/Durham Ontario, Canada working on the Daytime 1 hr live talk show, requiring about 3 hrs of effort each day. Over two months, I helped on 15 Daytime shows, a high school football game, an OHL hockey game and a Santa Claus parade. For the 2 - 3 paid staff, there were 10 - 15 volunteers running HD cameras, sound, VTR, graphics, floor director, guest liaison etc. Some jobs were easy and fun, others highly technical and stressful to learn. But we all had the chance to rotate among the positions each day.

This is an intense in-house training at no cost, a free chance to explore and learn a complex craft from scratch - with no prior experience or job posting competitive interview required. The people that I worked with truly loved the work, were eager to be there early and stay late, helped out in any area without complaining - a real chance to practice a craft, get better each time, and see your own results on TV when re-broadcast later at 4:00pm each day.

I suspect if these volunteers were paid, even at minimum wage, it would attract an entirely different type of people. Those that don't want to work much, are unmotivated, uninterested, and undisciplined. You can't mix a high performance type of workplace like TV production with a low performance 'I'm just here for the money' attitude. So in this industry, the end of unpaid positions would be tough to imagine.

Thoughts?
DaveZ

P.S. My experience with Rogers TV encouraged me to volunteer with a community theater group. With my new video and sound knowledge, I created the promo trailer for our production. I wrote the script, photographed pics, recorded sound and then edited it all together. You can see it on YouTube, search for Whitby Courthouse Theater Mindgame