Unpaid Internships? The Answer Isn’t That Hard

Much has been written about the recent New York Times article on whether employers are violating the wage and hour law by failing to pay interns for their work. See Workplace Prof Blog, Philip Miles, Manpower Employment Blawg, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, YGLESIAS, Hipsterrunoff, Joanne Jacobs, The Kept-Up Academic Librarian, Minding the Workplace, and FindLaw.

Employers don’t have as much money to spend these days on jobs. College students and college graduates are having lots of trouble finding jobs. It’s the perfect time for internships — unpaid internships, that is.

The federal Department of Labor and various state labor departments are conducting investigations into the alleged abuse of interns. It is possible for an internship to be unpaid if the internship complies with six federal legal criteria mentioned in the Times article as well as the requirements of certain state laws.

Non-profit employers have a better chance of justifying unpaid internships than for-profit employers because non-profits can legally have volunteers. Though frequently used by for-profit employers, especially these days, such unpaid internships are almost always illegal.

And there’s one reason why. One required criterion that’s virtually impossible to meet is that the intern not perform any work to the immediate advantage of the employer. That requirement may be outdated, but it’s still the law. Generally speaking, interns are used to do the work of employees. That means they must be paid.

If this analysis makes you nervous, you’re not alone. With both federal and state DOLs cracking down on the practice of using unpaid interns, this issue should be taken more seriously than it perhaps has been taken in the past.