Management 13th Edition by John Schermerhorn,Daniel Bachrach

Exercise 22

KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG
"A job listed on a resume wouldn't impress me just because it was a paid position. What matters is the experience you get from a job."
Interns Are Suing Their Employers for Back Pay

I t's true. Two interns sued Fox Searchlight Pictures claiming they did work that would otherwise have been done by paid employees... and they wanted to be paid for it. A federal judge in New York agreed and turned the notion of the unpaid internship upside down. In the Fox case there wasn't a lot of money at stake, about $8 an hour. But there is a lot at stake in the controversy created by the legal ruling. Fox's lead attorney Juno Turner says: "I think it would be the very rare internship that would meet the criteria set forth in this decision."
The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act allows businesses to hire unpaid interns but sets forth rules that must be followed. For example, interns can't "displace regular employees" and employers can't receive "immediate advantage from the activities of the intern." A strict interpretation of these guidelines seems to push employers in the direction of offering only paid internships. Turner claims it would be "rare" for an unpaid internship to meet the legal criteria applied in the Fox case. The exception is in the public sector where the law allows nonprofits to employee interns as volunteers.
Internships are a well-established source of valuable experience for students and a job entry point for many. Heather Huhman, author of Lies, Damned Lies Internships , says: "A job listed on a resume wouldn't impress me just because it was a paid position. What matters is the experience you get from a job." Data show that 37% of unpaid interns and 60% of paid interns get job offers.
So, who benefits from the Fox case Are we about to see the demise of the student internship
WHAT DO YOU THINK
Is it right for interns to demand pay in return for valuable work experience and a possible job entry point Are employers taking advantage of interns by not paying them for doing real work What's the dividing line between fairness and exploitation in an internship contract Who benefits from the Fox case Are we about to see a decline in the number of available student internships What's your internship experience Did you engage in tasks that had an immediate positive benefit for the firm you were working for Did it seem wrong to you that you weren't being paid