Shockingly, this somehow ended up being published by the NY Times in a momentary glimpse of reality
Confronting the worst job market in decades, many college graduates who expected to land paid jobs are turning to unpaid internships to try to get a foot in an employer’s door.
As Liberals liked to say while Bush was president “who’s president now??????”
Melissa Reyes, who graduated from Marist College with a degree in fashion merchandising last May, applied for a dozen jobs to no avail. She was thrilled, however, to land an internship with the Diane von Furstenberg fashion house in Manhattan. “They talked about what an excellent, educational internship program this would be,†she said.
Well, there’s your problem: a degree in “fashion merchandising.” The mythical basket weaving degree would be more useful. At least it is a useable skill. This goes back to what Rick Santorum was saying in that not everyone needs a college degree. You have kids like Ms. Reyes spending years creating enormous debt in order to get a barely useable degree, when they could have been learning an actual skill.
Most of the rest of the story is about how unpaid interns are treated like slave labor, but, hey, there aren’t really any jobs out there for even Ivy League school graduates.
The odd thing is that there have been lawsuits and the DOJ is looking into internships and their legality.
The Fair Labor Standards Act lays out criteria for having interns. Part of the ability to sue the company is that it is a for profit enterprise.
Of course, Congress is not a for profit group and is therefore exempt from the very law it passes on offering wages for work.
More here.
A new reading of “Why buy a cow, when….”
hello… unpaid interns are there voluntarily and are unskilled workers, thus can be asked to do anything.
She needs to learn how to weld, mow grass, or be a farmer.