Students often use the summer to take advantage of internships to gain experience in a chosen field. However in recent weeks, the legality of unpaid internships have come under scrutiny.
Some federal and state labor regulators have questioned whether some unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws by using the free labor illegally.
The New York Times quoted Nancy J. Leppink, acting director of the Department of Labor’s wage and hour division saying “If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law.”
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, companies must follow six criteria (see right) in order for someone to be considered an intern. If they don’t follow the six rules, the interns would be considered employees.
This means the business and possibly the school would be held responsible for complying with the FLSA – meaning they’d have to pay the students.
Melissa Burns, coordinator of internships and career services at the School of Business, said roughly half the internships they list are unpaid. Burns said the School of Business approves the companies before listing the internships, but do not follow up to check whether they follow the Department of Labor’s six requirements.
1.) The training in the internship must be similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction. The intern must be doing educational work, not just menial tasks.
2.) The work by the intern must be for the benefit of the intern not the employer.
3.) The employer obtains no immediate advantage from the intern. The employer cannot gain a tangible benefit from the intern’s activities, meaning the intern cannot increase the business’s productivity.
4.) Interns cannot take the place of regular employees. They cannot take hours away from employees or do work the employer would have otherwise had to hire someone to do.
5.) The intern is not necessarily guaranteed a job after the internship.
6.) The employer and the intern understand the intern is not going to be paid.