Millions of students spend a summer, semester, or year learning the inside of a private sector industry.\u00a0 Often they do it for school credit, but no pay.<\/p>\n
The Department of Labor says most times that’s illegal, and it’s going to crack down on companies that don’t pay interns.<\/p>\n
Labor lawyers, such as Kara Maciel at EpsteinBeckerGreen law firm, suggest businesses should review what they ask interns to do.\u00a0 \u201cIf [interns] are performing administrative tasks, clerical tasks, answering phones, getting copies,\u201d\u00a0 Maciel says, \u201cthings that would otherwise displace a regular employee, then the Department of Labor may find that to be more looking like an employee than an intern.\u201d\u00a0 And therefore should be paid, she says. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But business lobby groups note the economy is so tight, companies may have to cut the number of interns they hire, or not hire interns at all, if they all have to be paid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barbara Lang, the Vice President and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce, says this will hit small businesses especially hard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will likely not be able to pay for it. Unless the government is going to provide some subsidy along with these requirements, they won’t be able to provide these experiences any more,\u201d Lang says.<\/p>\n
Supporters say the law should be enforced, and companies should not get free labor.\u00a0 They also want to level\u00a0<\/strong>the playing field between interns who can afford to work for free and those who can’t.<\/p>\n Ross Eisenbrey, the Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute, says, \u201cIf you can’t have an unpaid internship because you need to work, you’re poor, or your family just doesn’t have the means, you’re cut out, and that’s wrong.”<\/p>\n Eisenbray says the law does not apply to non-profit organizations or the federal government.<\/p>\n There is such a thing as a legally unpaid internship if it is truly a structured educational experience, for the benefit of the intern, rather than the company, with no promise of a job after the internship ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Millions of students spend a summer, semester, or year learning the inside of a private sector industry.\u00a0 Often they do it for school credit, but no pay. The Department of Labor says most times that’s illegal, and it’s going to crack down on companies that don’t pay interns. Labor lawyers, such as Kara Maciel at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}