The cost of free labour

I have had a lot of my former students ask me about unpaid internships and I can't tell you how much it pisses me off when an agency takes advantage of students or juniors as a means of free labour. There are so many agencies that feel quite justified in not paying for someone to come in and do work for them. In NYC, I can see where the experience of interning at an agency like Pentagram or Saatchi & Saatchi or BBDO might be valuable. In Calgary, where I lived for 30 years, there are very, very few shops that can boast internationally renowned fortune 500 clients. So where does a shop that has zero Fortune 1000 (let alone Fortune 500) clients get off thinking that they should be entitled to slave labour?

Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, president of the AIGA Philadelphia chapter, writes an op-ed about the cost of free labour and initiated the “AIGA Philadelphia Paid Internship Pledge” in September 2010, to inform businesses about the legal requirements for internships and advocate for the fair treatment of students and designers in the workplace.

According to the US Department of Labour there are six key stipulations that must be met for unpaid status to be acceptable. The one that I believe most agencies ignore or don't realize is "The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded." That means your intern doesn't help you by becoming part of the workforce. If they do, they no longer qualify as an intern and should be paid. Period.

If you own your own shop and you're not an Ogilvy or a TBWA, I encourage you to pay your students or juniors. Even if you are, I encourage you to pay them. Yes, they're geting experience but by not paying them it also creates an unlevel playing field for those individuals that can't afford to not be paid. We all need to knock out that rent and pay our bills. A student or a junior is probably going to be in the most financially unstable demographic. If you really want to help, pay them. They'll appreciate you more, they will get more out of the experience and will likely be more inclined to recommend their experience to future generations.

Read Maribeth's article here.

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