Washington’s cherry blossoms and spring break tourism just peaked. So the next onslaught of visitors to the nation’s capital is just around the corner – interns. Each summer, D.C.’s cadre of nonprofits, advocacy groups, Congress and various federal agencies welcome an army of summer interns seeking free work in exchange for experience. The resulting rite of passage is often fun and sometimes scandalous, but it’s presumed to be educational, too.
That supposed educational component is one reason unpaid internships persist. Otherwise it’s just work and should be paid like any other job.
In the private sector, internships operate under a set of requirements to differentiate them from actual paid work. These ensure that the internship is structured to be educational, doesn’t directly benefit the employer, isn’t a tryout period and doesn’t displace existing workers, among other requirements. The rules are as sensible as they are widely ignored, because enforcement is spotty. A few high-profile lawsuits, notably a $5.8 million settlement in 2015 by Conde Nast, looked like a death knell for unpaid internships in the for-profit sector. But in 2015, an appeals court overturned a case involving interns at Fox Searchlight, and just last month Gawker won a similar suit brought by a former intern.
The federal government (including Congress) is exempt from these requirements, and nonprofits are carved out because of exceptions for volunteer work. But while the case against unpaid internships in the private sector is pretty clear, the question of whether or not the rules should be different for the federal government or nonprofits isn’t straightforward. After all, isn’t work just work regardless of where it’s being done?
Let’s be honest, in the nonprofit and public sector, many internships aren’t designed to be especially educational and often do supplant work that paid employees could or should otherwise be doing. Much of it is just administrative work.
What’s more, unpaid internships in nonprofit or government reinforce existing inequality. Unpaid summers or semesters are a luxury of the economically fortunate. I’ve hired interns for almost two decades, and applicants range from young people who can work for free indefinitely thanks to a line of credit at the First Bank of Mom and Dad to candidates who have to weigh walking to work versus getting something to eat. I’m personally more inclined to help the latter get a leg up, but overall most internships clearly reward the former.
The inequity is even more apparent when you consider the formal and informal networks that steer students toward plum internships in the first place. And, of course, the underlying contours of higher education – hardly an engine of social mobility – further exacerbate who gains awareness of and access to coveted internships in the first place.
So why not crack down on unpaid internships in the not-for-profit and government sector?
In practice, well-designed internships can be educational. It’s a chance to learn about a field – both its content but also its form. It’s also an opportunity to engage with more senior leaders and learn from them formally and informally. (That shouldn’t mean answering phones all summer in exchange for one lunch with someone but should rather involve regular educational experiences.)
Exposing interns to actual work can also help avoid early-career false starts. For instance, from the outside, policy work can look like an endless string of interesting debates broken only by some time making wisecracks on Twitter. In fact, it’s mostly solitary analytic work, and it’s certainly not for everyone. It’s better to learn that early when the opportunity costs and actual costs are still low.
Requiring all internships to be paid would absolutely clean up some shady and exploitive practices – yet it would also constrain educational opportunities that are available now. Short-term hires carry a variety of costs, and paying interns is something that is out of reach for many nonprofits. The end result would probably just be fewer internships rather than better ones.
So what to do? There is some low-hanging fruit.
While every internship at a nonprofit or government agency can’t be a paid one, making sure there is financial aid available for candidates from low-income backgrounds helps level the field.
Positive peer pressure can help, too. Informally people tend to know who runs good internships that are educational rather than administrative. Reward that with referrals and good references. Interns should reference the experience with former interns. Beware of organizations that can’t or won’t make them available.
Continuing relationships helps, too. One of the best signals that an internship is educational and not transactional is the degree of involvement with the former intern as that person transitions to full-time work. Investing in the growth of individuals means helping them especially when it carries no benefit to your organization.
Obviously, improving nonprofit and government internships won’t solve the inequity students face; that is a broader basket of issues. And the problems with internships in the not-for-profit sectors are not as problematic as in the for-profit world. Still, there is plenty of room to do better.
