Interns deserve fair compensation

The summer internship hunt consumes the spring semester — but even students who manage to secure a position may go hungry.

The internship system encourages students in the humanities to take on internships that are either unpaid or extremely underpaid. This broken system only reinforces classist disparities in a vicious cycle.

While STEM companies completely fill CNN’s list of top-paying internships, students in other fields often must choose between building their resumés and providing for themselves.

I have been fortunate enough to intern the past two summers unpaid while working part time, but I am one of the lucky few — I was only able to accept  the position by living at home with my family’s financial support.

If I had been on my own, paying for my own groceries and rent as so many of my peers do, I would not have been able to afford to work for free.

Currently, half of internships are unpaid, according to survey data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers . When low-income students are forced to pass up unpaid internships, many fear that they fall behind their peers, as they lose out on experience and networking opportunities in their field. According to Chronicle of Higher Education, employers now expect college students to graduate with at least a few internships behind them. Internship and work experience both ranked above academic performance, each topping a quarter of respondents’ considerations. Being smart isn’t enough anymore.

Underpaid and unpaid internships are more than problematic. Rarely do advisors explain the legal rules surrounding these programs  to applicants, making it hard for desperate students to realize when employers go too far.

Currently, an internship has to meet several Department of Labor standards to be legal. It must provide the intern with training similar to that of an educational environment. The compnay must not take advantage of the intern. The intern cannot displace regular employees, and both parties must understand that the intern is not guaranteed a job or entitled to wages.

Unfortunately for students hoping to make their break, some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations don’t meet these standards.

In November 2014, Condé Nast, the media giant responsible for Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker agreed to settle a class action lawsuit from thousands of interns who claimed the corporation unlawfully denied them minimum wage payment. Judge William Pauley ruled that the interns acted as  employees and  deserved a minimum wage, as the internship provided no educational value. Condé Nast ultimately paid $5.8 million, or between $700 and $1,900 to about 7,500 interns, according to Reuters.

Yet, the unpaid internship industry extends outside of corporations and into the offices of public officials — even those who advocate for workers’ rights.

Hillary Clinton, who has long advocated for a solid minimum wage and even spoken out against the exploitation of unpaid internships, faced backlash in June after a former intern’s opinions piece in USA Today alleged that that she hired experienced staffers as unpaid interns, or “fellows.”

The answer is not to eradicate these unpaid internships completely. While Condé Nast completely shut down its internship program after the lawsuit scandal, it would have been much better if the company would have reformed and paid interns what they deserve.

In August, the company gave a 40 percent raise to Nicholas Coleridge, President of Condé Nast International, boosting his yearly salary to nearly $2 million. So with double the profits and sky-high salaries, Condé Nast still can’t afford to invest in the industry’s future by hiring and paying interns? Unlikely.

There are plenty of organizations, like Condé Nast and Clinton’s campaign, that can afford to pay their interns minimum wage, but instead choose to slim costs and benefit from unpaid labor. We need to publicize the standards set by the Department of Labor and educate students about their rights to repair this exploitative system.

We need to make sure the internship world is not a barrier to those from difficult economic backgrounds, but an accessible steppingstone.

Alyssa primarily writes on social justice and political issues for The Pitt News.

Write to her at aal43@pitt.edu