Hoyt: Inequality and Unpaid Labor
By Hannah Hoyt, Contributing Columnist
Published on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
As Spring term comes to an end, the discussion of summer jobs rises to the forefront of our conversations. For a school that is dominated by an attitude of academic nonchalance, summer jobs are surprisingly rife with connotations and labels. While our majors might not speak to our post-college ambitions or our academic success at Dartmouth, summer jobs, for better or worse, tell our classmates about our aspirations for the future.
The playing field for summer jobs, however, is deeply polarized at Dartmouth. While Dartmouth students will spread out across the globe to work for a variety of organizations this summer, only some students can take on the financial burden of an unpaid internship. Those who cannot are restricted to jobs that can provide them with a sufficient stream of income.
Although unpaid internships are not fundamentally wrong — it makes sense that low-budget non-profits rely on having unpaid summer interns — the line of legality often becomes blurry when for-profit organizations hire unpaid interns. Federal labor laws stipulate that unpaid internships at for-profit organizations are legal if and only if the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s work and if the intern’s training is “similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction.” But too often unpaid internships straddle the line of menial labor or lack educational content, thereby crossing over to the territory in which an individual should be compensated for his or her work.
Unpaid internships also perpetuate a concerning cycle of inequality. Only those students with the financial resources to work for free are able to take unpaid internships and use their summers to build their resumes. Other students have to take jobs that satisfy their financial needs but not necessarily their career ambitions. In the for-profit fields in which unpaid internships dominate, a summer of unpaid labor is often the key to attaining a paid job down the road. The inequality of opportunity that these types of internships create is fundamentally against the ethos of Dartmouth — an institution that rewards merit, not wealth.
Dartmouth has tried to combat the pervasive growth of unpaid internships among for-profit organizations. The College does not offer academic credit for unpaid internships, a strategy many companies use to avoid the burden of insurance and proper compensation. Additionally, Career Services has imposed a baseline salary for for-profit companies participating in the recruiting process, and funding for non-profit internships is available through a variety of academic departments and institutes across campus. However, the College can further ameliorate the inequality perpetuated by unpaid internships by increasing the transparency and funding available for non-profit internships and by taking a formal stance against unpaid internships at for-profit companies.
Right now, dozens of centers, departments and organizations on campus dispense funding to students for non-profit work. Although some efforts have been made to centralize information about these internships and standardize application procedures and dates, we need a database of funding opportunities — a centralized digital hub and perhaps even a physical office, not just a haphazard set of links to antiquated web pages.
Furthermore, the College needs to take a consistent stance toward unpaid internships at for-profit companies. Right now, Career Services provides funding for unpaid internships at for-profit companies for work in “advertising, public relations or publishing” and “children’s educational media/literature.” These awards should be redirected to unpaid work at non-profits. Although the amount of money shifted would be nominal, this change would bring consistency to the College’s actions toward unpaid internships at for-profit organizations.
To make this change sustainable, the College needs to ally with its peer institutions to take a firm stance against the inequality created by unpaid internships by preventing for-profit companies from advertising unpaid internships through their career services departments. Although this change would cut down on the amount of opportunities that are advertised through each university’s career website, it would signal to for-profit companies that their reliance on unpaid student labor perpetuates inequality.
If we stand back and let unpaid internships at for-profit companies continue without taking a stance, we are complicit in creating inequality in employment opportunities. We cannot continue to pay for the privilege of working for free. Instead, we must demand change. We have the authority and credibility to affirm the value of student labor and the equality of career opportunities, and it is our obligation to act on this opportunity.
Don’t think it’s right for a company to use your labor without paying you? Great! Don’t apply for or accept an unpaid internship.
But as soon as you start crying to mama Dartmouth for not doing enough to help you deal with reality (that is, that some people “have” to work while others “don’t” and this “perpetuates inequality”) you’re way off the rails. Next thing you know you’ll be demonizing entrepreneurs and savers, working hard now so they can retire early, for doing the same.
Get over it. You’re not entitled to anything. And, besides, it’s not about you, anyway:
While you think it’s important to stand up for “the value of student labor,” the existence of unpaid internships reflects the reality that sometimes student labor just isn’t worth it to the company doing the hiring. I’m not saying that because particular intern is unpaid, he or she must not be bringing value to the company. But especially in professional fields, new employees tend to be a drain on their employer for several months to a year until they have learned enough to be productive enough to justify their salary. This is often true even of seasoned workers moving laterally from one company to another, just just entry-level workers. Add typical Millennial flakiness or a “summer vacation” attitude to the mix and I can see why some for-profits might see not paying their interns as a fair deal or at least a hedge against risk.
By Anonymous on May 30 | 9:43 am
Interesting article. Can you name some of these for-profit companies that are recruiting Dartmouth students for unpaid internships?
By Anonymouse on May 30 | 1:43 pm
Anon 9:43 am – Your defense of/excuse for the unpaid internship system is not only flawed—it’s patently untrue. You can speculate all you want over why companies might be legitimate in shafting their student interns, but that does not mean you are right. If you’ve kept a thumb in a legitimate newspaper or magazine these days, I’m sure you would have come across a number of news stories and editorials addressing the very issues Ms. Hoyt raises here. The fact that student interns are being taken advantage of is not the story here—again, that much has been pretty well established elsewhere and in multiple—it’s the suggestions (the very clear and convincing suggestions, too, I might add) that Ms. Hoyt brings to the conversation and applies specifically to Dartmouth, as well as her argument (equally clear and convincing) that the system contributes further to inequality down the road.
By Tommy on May 30 | 5:55 pm
I agree with Ms. Hoyt that students should be paid for their labors, even if they are learning in the process. I think it is important for students to find proof that they are valuable in the world boyond academia. While you are young you are bound to be learning, no matter what your pastime. I know I did some of my best work at 20; I had boundless energy, optimism and brains. I was paid but I should have been paid more, even accounting for the mistakes I made due to inexperience. I agree with you that career services should take the stance you suggest. If a for-profit company doesn’t want to pay its interns, they should hire non-students. I would accept compensation in the form of room and board plus a stipend, but it really hurts if people are paying for the privelege of being interns and you’re right, only the priveleged can do that.
By mother of student on May 30 | 7:57 pm
I’ll ask you another question.. Is there much equity in the fact that some people pay close to nothing to go to Dartmouth and other people pay close to $60,000 a year? There are a lot of things that aren’t fair that you have to deal with.
By recent alum on May 31 | 8:44 am