Are Unpaid Internships Unfair?

When it comes to internships, students and employers have to decide where the line between opportunity and exploitation is.

“Some days I wouldn’t go in because I literally could not afford it,” said Lulu Pellizari, a journalism student at Rutgers University, of her unpaid internship.

While her internship offered valuable experience, it was difficult to receive no pay and have to cover transportation expenses herself, she said.

Not only can unpaid internships exploit workers but they can also perpetuate inequality. This is why the Newark-based New Jersey Institute for Social Justice plans to begin paying their interns, according to the organization’s Chief Operating Officer Phillip Webb.

“We wanted to be sure we were enabling all people to be able to participate in our internship program, regardless of their background and financial circumstances,” Webb said.

Students need internships to build a professional network, receive letters of recommendation, receive academic credit, and gain experience in the industry, he explained. The system should be fair for all people to be in a position that allows them that advantage of the opportunities, he said.

In recent years, this very debate over the economic and educational inequalities of unpaid internships has circulated in courtrooms.

In a high-profile case against FOX Searchlight in 2011, Eric Gatt and Alexander Footman filed a lawsuit against FOX over their experience as unpaid interns on the 2010 Oscar-winning movie, Black Swan, according to a Deadline report.

The suit was based on claims that the work Glatt and Footman did as interns should be classified as paid work.They sought back pay for their work on the set of Black Swan and won five years later in 2016 after the suit went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The film Glatt and Footman worked on, Black Swan went on to gross over $300 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Glatt and Footman did not see a dollar of that.

In addition to lawsuits, interns have begun organizing and in DATE, an organization was created called Pay Our Interns that works to ensure that internships are paid in the government, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors.

For non-profits like the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, not paying interns seems particularly contrary to their values, explained Webb.

“We’re a social justice organization,” said Webb. “We should be on the right side of that.”