Internment Camp: A Book Review of Intern Nation by Ross Perlin

Comedian George Carlin once said, "Whoever coined the phrase 'Let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole."

The line was in reference to underhanded sales tactics, but, according to the new exposé Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, the visual he describes can be equally figuratively applied to most intern's experiences across North America.

In addition to providing what could be the first true history of the internship -- from its beginnings in medicine as the original year of practicum after medical school to the current explosion that began in the 1980s -- American author Ross Perlin lifts the veil on working conditions most of us assume are limited to third world countries.

RELATED LINKS

• Unpaid Internships Outed as Illegal?
• Creative Ways to Land a Job in a Tough Market
• The Best Part-time Jobs for Students

Authors @Google: Ross Perlin

The biggest injustice Perlin uncovers sees thousands of interns working eight-hour days or longer, doing either menial, but important, administrative tasks or the exact same job as paid employees, for either no pay or pay below minimum wage.

As Walletpop previously reported, employing someone for free can only happen under very specific circumstances. Internships can be unpaid only if they meet all six specific criteria outlined first by the U.S. in the Fair Labor Standards Act (criteria subsequently copied by other jurisdictions, including Ontario).

So why is such an illegal arrangement still so pervasive? Perlin demonstrates that along with cultural endorsement from all sides and fearful or misinformed interns, the main reason is the failure of The Wage and Hour Division [WHD] to enforce the law. Since the 1970s, employers have asked if their interns can remain unpaid under the strict "trainee" exemption and the response from WHD is always polite, but indecisive and includes no follow-up.

"The [U.S.] Department of Labor acts as little more than a passive, invisible arbiter of last resort, never actively seeking out companies to prosecute, barely keeping up with shifting social norms around interns," writes Perlin. He's backed up by stats he uncovered showing that from 1975 to 2004, when companies in the WHD purview increased 112%, staff investigators fell by 14% due to budget cuts. Since 2007, when the office lost 732 investigators, Obama has hired 250 new ones, but the results of his efforts have yet to been seen.

You'd think no money, benefits, overtime or worker's compensation would be enough of a screw job, but Perlin shocks with the number issues forcing today's interns to bend over to the man even further.

Female interns report sexual harassment from their bosses, but when they complain to the courts they aren't considered employees, so they aren't afforded the same workplace rights their full-time counterparts would get and their cases are thrown out. (Perlin told me they could sue on a tort basis, but that would be more time consuming and less effective)

There's also the matter of employers trying to stay one step ahead of the law by requiring the intern obtain course credit to qualify for the opportunity, even though there is no real educational training or classroom component to speak of. To make matters worse, the post-secondary institution frequently charges the perspective intern for the necessary credits without even making sure the internship meets credit requirements. Perlin recounts a story of a student who paid his school $1,600 in additional funds to work an unpaid internship at The Daily Show.

What about the NGOs and non-profits that employ unpaid interns as full-time staff under the legal myth that they are volunteers, even though under the law a volunteer is defined by altruistic motivations, not educational and career-building ones? Oh, and don't forget Dream Careers, one of numerous companies that charges internship seekers (or their parents) up to $7,000 to match them up with opportunities that are almost all unpaid. Then there are the highly coveted unpaid internships auctioned off to the highest bidder at luncheons and charity events. Perlin writes that a blogging internship at the AOL-owned Huffington Post went for $13,000 at one event. Even the U.S. Congress -- the same congress that establishes the American minimum wage -- made sure to exempt their own interns from the FLSA's guidelines, so they wouldn't be paid. These are the same interns without whom, America's political system doesn't run, as they do all the crucial behind-the-scenes administrative tasks on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

Thankfully, it's not all bad news. Perlin devotes many pages to fair internship systems such as apprenticeships and co-op programs. In fact, you'll learn that Ontario's University of Waterloo has one of the few remaining co-op programs at the university level. There are also top-tier internships in finance and technology that do pay and are used exclusively as a recruiting tool. These companies, including Microsoft, view their internships as an inexpensive investment in future talent, not cheap labour to be taken advantage of.

Perlin tells us that poorer minorities seldom receive access to the white collar world, especially industries like entertainment, journalism or video game design because their parents cannot subsidize their living expenses during internships that are the only foot in the door. Unfortunately, that means these students often have to work while interning and something has to give.

Enter INROADS, a non-profit organization meant to even the playing field, ensuring that diversity is maintained in corporate America by setting up those with a 2.8 GPA or better with paying internships sponsored, not by the interns themselves, but by companies providing the internships, like Boeing, TD Bank Financial Group, Target, MetLife, Pfizer, Google, Deloitte, Bridgestone/Firestone, Allstate Insurance, Johnson and Johnson, Coca-Cola, PECO, United Health Group, United Technologies and Kraft. INROADS also provides business classes related to each internship, along with alumni benefits afterward that track their interns for years. They've even expanded their operation internationally to Mexico and Canada.

Perlin's book is sometimes overwhelming and at times he doesn't ask enough tough questions of employers who are skirting the law, but to his credit he never pulls a Michael Moore and drops bombs without suggesting potential solutions. The entire final chapter is a call to action in implementing many possible reforms. The book is the first of its kind, a rage-inducing must read for anyone concerned about labour issues, but it's also only a starting point. Many of the chapters deserve a book of their own. If nothing else, we're glad to see an issue students and recent graduates have been dealing with for decades, finally come to mainstream attention.