Unpaid internships, inequality and educating self-worth

The problem with the reporting on the problem with internships

Needless to say, for anyone in the communications and media industry, unpaid internships are a hot topic right now.

This recent New York Times piece frames the situation fairly accurately, however, they take an unfortunately simple and shallow approach. The impression this article gives is that the media's favourite pet, privileged 20-somethings, are struggling through unpaid internship after unpaid internship unable to get their 'dream job.' They neglect to offer, also, that these dream jobs - unpaid or not - are in one of the United States' most competitive industries. The 29-year old who is still working unpaid, not to be a dream crusher, but he ought to get a sense of reality.

Is it possible the reason unpaid internships are so frequent in these industries is that people are willing, and able, to work unpaid?

First, unpaid internships privilege middle- and upper-class families.

The 24-year old who can still be living at home, eating her parents' food, not paying rent, and potentially borrowing the family car, has few enough expenses to ride out a 4-month internship term. The small town graduate with 40 or 50K in debt who cannot commute to New York, whose parents are struggling with medical debt and have just had their house repossessed (seeing as the article is American I might as well keep my situations American), simply cannot work for free. The chance to work unpaid and end up with a job that he loves is not feasible. He has to get another job, one in a market where he can afford to live. This is a lifestyle that the interns interviewed in the New York Times piece don't seem to have considered. Not to pick on them, but they evidently have money coming from somewhere, and that's incredibly fortunate.

No doubt the college grads who don't have the option to further themselves in debt by living in New York take less ideal jobs in less competitive markets. A journalism grad who can't find work in NY or LA could probably work a communications job for a reasonable salary at an SME or a college. No, it's not the dream. No, it might not be 'doing what you love.' But it's not the end of the road. Getting three to five years of experience, paying off debt, actually learning what it's like to work a real job, (I imagine) has to be more credible than 3 unpaid one-year stints in New York where data-entry and coffee runs were on the norm. Get REAL work experience, then apply for the dream job, when you're actually competent to do it.

Second, why the heck does our society teach us our Arts degrees are so invaluable that we need to work for free?

How about we change the conversation, rather than the law. 'Go to college so you can get a job' needs to stop. It's not true. 'Gain practical skills so you can get a job' would be far more accurate. 'Go to college so you can become educated, so you can become more critical, so you can learn to live on your own, manage your own time, teach yourself how to study.' No one is saying that. The generation working unpaid internships think that unpaid internships are the ONLY option. They've been told college = dream job. Not college = entry-level OK job which leads to mid-level better job and eventually, if you're talented and likeable, dream job.

In my program, our internship coordinator told us 'you just have to accept that you'll probably have to work for free in order to work at all.' I'm sorry, pardon me? That's not an OK thing to be telling young people who are at an age where they're developing self assurance and confidence in their abilities. Working for free for academic credit, while shady, at least has a reward at the end of it. Just, plain working for free, why are we telling people this is just how it is? Let them volunteer, 10-15 hours a week, don't encourage them to work for 40-hours, crippling their ability to have a second job and support themselves. Come on educators, teach your students to have more self worth than this.

Finally, the major criticisms on both sides need to be refined.

The previous generation says 'suck it up, you can't just get a job you love' and the millennials say 'old people don't get it.'

Both are true, but both are limiting. The boomer generation needs to accept that their children and grandchildren have been raised to want it all. We have been told to find a job we love, and not to settle for less. We've been told we are special and we can do whatever we want successfully. I totally understand how problematic and idealistic this perspective is, but the fact is, it's ingrained in the 90s babies. You can't change us now. It's too late. So 'suck it up' won't work.

However, we can be coddled into sucking it up, just like we were coddled into dreaming big. 20-somethings need to be eased into the idea that they might not get their dream job, but they can have something pretty close. They can aim for other work in their field, and apply to those dream jobs, while supporting themselves with jobs that need to be done. It's not giving up, it's subsidizing dreams with reality.

And 'old people don't get it'? No, they don't get it. For one, they were raised that you get a job to support your family, not to support your ego and ambition. And two, they simply wouldn't have worked unpaid. Can you imagine a 25 year old man coming home in 1950 and saying 'I'm writing for the Journal for free, so I'm going to have to stay home.' It just wasn't done. Mom and dad would have said get a job and get a life of your own (in nicer words I hope).

‘If our parents wouldn’t have allowed for this, why should we?’ is too simple. Our parents didn’t think in the same way we do, therefore cannot look at the problem as we do, nor can we approach it as they do.

Is there a solution?

When we're talking about internships, it's a bigger conversation than 'media companies don't pay interns and interns are fighting back.' If interns were really fighting back, every single unpaid intern would quit, and none of the menial, but valuable, tasks that should be paid for, would get done. Media companies that rely on unpaid interns would fall apart, and would need to adapt or die.

Suddenly, at least minimal wage job postings would pop up for executive assistants and entry-level everything. The companies that already pay their interns, would get ahead, as they deserve to, while the others got organized.

Companies who have no problem cutting their internship programs, because interns add no value, clearly weren't using interns effectively. Job shadowing programs, where the intern isn't required to do any actual work, but can volunteer if interested, are a fair and decent alternative. Legal restrictions need to be put on these roles to ensure they stay educational. As an intern, if I could work Monday-Thursday in service but go in and spend time observing and helping an editor every Friday, that would allow me to earn and learn. These are the type of unpaid programs I think would be most beneficial for both the employee and employer in the long run. Everything else should be, if nothing else, compensated by minimal wage.