Unpaid internships gain popularity among the jobless

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Malibu resident Ashley St. Johns-Jacobs, 40, typically rises before 5 a.m. to get to her job at the Los Angeles city attorney's office by 8 a.m. After a full day prosecuting misdemeanors, she often brings work home.

What she doesn't bring home is a paycheck. With no position open, she has been working as an unpaid intern for nearly a year in hopes of eventually getting hired when a job opens up.

... Meet the new interns. With the unemployment rate still high and the economy not creating nearly enough jobs to put the nation's 13.7 million unemployed back to work, seasoned workers like St. Johns-Jacobs are doing what was once unthinkable: working for free.

... The number of highly qualified people agreeing to work for no pay indicates just how bad the labor market is in California, said Sylvia Allegretto, economist at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-old-interns-20110315,0,583984.story

[OhioChick]

1. Welcome to the new Amerika n/t

[MNBrewer]

2. Reverting to the Middle Ages

I'm looking at trying to get into one, myself.

[Hannah Bell]

3. those are for trust fund kids.

[silverweb]

12. Not necessarily.

My daughter worked as an unpaid intern for 6 months. I'm just a single parent living paycheck to paycheck, and I supported her through it. Neither one of us has ever been a "trust fund kid."

The internship gave her experience and a hiring edge, and it did help. I can understand people on unemployment taking unpaid internships in the hope that they will help them get hired.

I share your viewpoints much of the time, Hannah, but you're using an unwarranted broad brush and being harshly judgmental here.

[eridani]

29. Six months is one thing. More than a year is quite another . n/t

[applegrove]

4. I did that when I was looking for work one time. I got some great experience. Found out a lot about

myself. I would reccommend it to anyone who can afford it. Don't just volunteer anywhere...write to the exact place that would be your dream job and see if they'll create an unpaid internship for you. I got a few months' experience and learnt so much.

[backscatter712]

5. Welcome to my world.

Right now, I'm working at the Colorado State Capitol as an intern for my state senator, Bob Bacon.

It's a great experience, and makes for great bragging rights on my resume, but it does have the disadvantage of not providing a paycheck.

[Cleita]

6. Back in my day we were called trainees and we were

paid a minimum salary. I'm glad I'm not just out of college and in the job market today.

[Newest Reality]

7. Dontcha' just love capitalism?

Work for free today! Sounds catchy and we will certainly be a free country again, that way.

You never know, you might have to pay them to let your work for them in the future. That won't work out so well, but hey, anything is possible these days.

[MNBrewer]

8. Capitalism... Serfdom.... Semantics, right?

[Newest Reality]

13. You bet!

The Lords are in their castles. The Serfs are milling about in Fiefdoms. Lord "Imperial" Walker makes his decrees before his royal court.

Who took all the pitchforks and torches, ey? Any eHow on building your own guillotines?

How shall we feed our chariots and with what shall we make our pizza?

[MNBrewer]

16. at least we elected a DEM for Gov in MN, even if the legislature flipped

If we hadn't... Minnesota would be in exactly the same position as Wisconsin. I'm an atheist, so saying "thank god that Mark Dayton was elected Governor" is no endorsement of the deity... but it certainly IS heart felt! Mark Dayton is all that stands between us, and the abyss.

[Amonester]

38. Answer: With plutonium cake.

Coming this way.

[NYC Liberal]

9. Isn't the FLSA pretty strict about what companies can have interns

do without being paid?

[MNBrewer]

19. supported on what topic?

[NYC Liberal]

24. Huh? nt

[MNBrewer]

26. on which topic is President Obama supported in 2012...? I guess re-election? Maybe?

[NYC Liberal]

27. Job approval

[MNBrewer]

30. so is that a prediction of the approval rating from progressives in 2012?

[NYC Liberal]

31. Nope, it's a statement of what it is now.

[MNBrewer]

32. it's 2011

[NYC Liberal]

33. Yep, that is correct... nt

[MNBrewer]

34. so where does the 2012 come in? is it a non sequitur to the rest of the comment?

[NYC Liberal]

35. They are two separate but related comments: Supporting Obama's reelection in 2012

and noting the kind of support he has right now among the "base" of the party.

[MNBrewer]

36. ahhhh.....

[Starry Messenger]

10. Only the rich kids at my college were able to afford to do those.

Little did the rest of us proles know, those internships were key to getting job opportunities. Nowadays, they aren't even that. It's indentured servitude.

[Capitalocracy]

11. It's especially insulting when companies with huge profits do this. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Let's see, work all day for no pay? For a year? At age 40?

That's not an internship. That's EXPLOITATION.

Any employer who would hire an experienced worker for a year at no pay deserves to have the Department of Labor nipping at its ass.

[right2bfree]

21. Bingo!! We have a winner!! nt

[Initech]

28. Seriously. It's fucking sickening what's happening with our jobs.

[Thunderstruck]

15. And the march toward a significant reduction in the standard of living for Americans continues...

[ChromeFoundry]

17. Damn, that's messed up! n/t

[JCMach1]

18. At least slaves got a place to stay... and a bit of food...

:sarcasm:

[right2bfree]

22. Yeap!!

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

20. next up, intern positions at Walmart

for experience in the retail trade.

[defendandprotect]

23. We need to organize labor outside of companies/corporations ---

show the power of it and then take it to the states to demand universal

health care -- that would be a good start and from there we could begin

to recapture some of what we've lost --

Stop enriching banks by using their ATM cards -- and credit cards --

And let's stop electing millionaires and multi-millionaires to office --

they're not interested in the general welfare, they're interested in their

own welfare!!

Unfortunately, even back to 1978, Democrats were collaborating with GOP --

See: Wm. Greider "Who Will Tell the People" --

[Rex]

25. That is what you get with no bargaining rights or a collective body

thats 'got your back'.

We have another name for that, serfdom.

[prolesunited]

37. No wonder businesses haven't picked up hiring

There's enough desperate people to work for them for free. Actually, it's costing HER money to do this -- commuting costs, suitable clothing and dry cleaning, meals outside of the home, sitter for the kids perhaps.

[TorchTheWitch]

39. uh, there will be no job opening as long as this dipshit is already doing it free

This is just the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Just why the hell would anyone work for free in the first place, and why the hell would they expect they'd eventually get hired when they're already working for free??? Work for free and there's NO incentive to ever make it a paying job. If there's a position available to do for free then there is a position available that should be paid for - the job exists, the company just wants a slave to do it, and some asshole is actually willing to be that slave. What. The. Fuck.

This shit should be illegal.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. Even STUDENT internships should be illegal

When I was a graduate student at an Ivy League school, I knew undergraduates who took unpaid internships at Wall Street brokerages and major magazines and broadcast networks in New York.

As someone who could have never afforded to live on my own in New York City, even working minimum wage, this was a clear attempt to weed out anyone whose family wasn't rich.

Don't tell me that a Wall Street brokerage or Time magazine or CBS couldn't afford to pay a student to do a summer job.

I can see a struggling non-profit asking for volunteers, but a multinational corporation? No way.