Althouse: "A really important moment for this movement against unpaid internships."

December 20, 2012

"A really important moment for this movement against unpaid internships."

The Charlie Rose show settles with interns who claimed they should have received minimum wage.

35 comments:

edutcher said...: Lefties trodding down the downtrodden?

Say it ain't so.; 12/20/12, 2:21 PM
David said...: Yeah, it's the moment that less of these internships become available.

It's argued that unpaid internships are unfair because only the affluent can afford to take them.

Problem is, only the affluent can afford to take most paid internships too.

Ask Bill Belichick how unpaid internships worked out for him.; 12/20/12, 2:24 PM
traditionalguy said...: Common Sense strikes again.

The free labor is not owed by a vassal to the Lord of the Manor in our Scots-Irish tradition. Let the Lord pay for the laborers according to the 13th Amendment.

Piers Morgan will find this approach stupid, but so what.; 12/20/12, 2:25 PM
Alex said...: Clint Eastwood on internships

My father used to say to me, "Show 'em what you can do, and don't worry about what you're gonna get. Say you'll work for free and make yourself invaluable"; 12/20/12, 2:26 PM
Gahrie said...: I say (seriously) we dump internships and bring back apprenticeships and OJT.; 12/20/12, 2:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: ...movement against unpaid internships.

A movement or a grab?; 12/20/12, 2:41 PM
Anthony said...: Seeing that it's the sort of people who are most in favor of raising the minimum wage who are most likely to use unpaid interns to perform necessary labor, I'm all in favor of sticking it to them good and hard.; 12/20/12, 2:42 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: So... Is anybody calling his eminence Charlie Rose a hypocrite?; 12/20/12, 2:48 PM
Emil Blatz said...: Charlie is a tight fisted bastard, eh?; 12/20/12, 2:52 PM
David said...: Here is your lead plaintiff:

Lucy Bickerton studied film at Wesleyan University. Upon graduating in 2008, she moved to NYC and began assisting on independent film, television and commercial shoots. She eventually migrated to the world of casting, working on a variety of film and theatre projects at Stephanie Klapper Casting, when Malcolm Murray invited her to join on as a producer of Bad Posture. She has since returned to NYC, freelancing in film and video production, and currently resides in Brooklyn.

In other words, out of college 4 years, hasn't done shit.

Wesleyan promotes itself as a big time film program in a big time liberal arts college.

This is your result.

I doubt she had to worry much about student loan payback. Mummy and Daddy took care of that. Bless you, Mummy and Daddy.; 12/20/12, 2:59 PM
Cedarford said...: I have a major problem with wildly successful media production companies with highly paid "stars" and execs using their power for exploiting new job aspirants to work for free with "unpaid internships".
If Charlie Rose is getting 6 million a year and his shows execs and producers are also in the millions to 100s of thousands in salary - telling new people that vie for a starting position they must do it for free and work long hours - lest the bigshots lose a morsel of the exec compensation profit sharing - is obscene. Karl Marx was right about a certain Elite that would exploit the people they had power over to no end if permitted.

Put it this way...if it was the Charlie Rose mining company or the fabulously profitable Charlie Rose defense contract weapons maker - and they were insisting the only way to eventually get a paying job was to kickback to the fatcats at the top all value from their mining in the hole, or making fire control circuit boards - there would be holy hell raised.

Stick it to the rich liberal and progressive jewish bastards running the mass media! Stick it to them hard!; 12/20/12, 3:01 PM
test said...: Anthony said...
Seeing that it's the sort of people who are most in favor of raising the minimum wage who are most likely to use unpaid interns to perform necessary labor, I'm all in favor of sticking it to them good and hard.

It is a stupid law. But even stupid laws should be enforced equally. I say no exceptions.; 12/20/12, 3:01 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: In the About page, the Internship offer is along side the acknowledgment of a major sponsor... Coca Cola.

Charlie is also getting a paycheck from CBS I presume...

Didn't PBS push out Bob Vila over his... entrepreneurial pursuits?; 12/20/12, 3:03 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: "Charlie Rose is unique."

You can say that again.; 12/20/12, 3:05 PM
David said...: My son worked as an unpaid intern at MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour.

It was a great experience. The value was incalculable.

It convinced him they were charlatans and that he wanted nothing to do with television news, especially PBS.; 12/20/12, 3:06 PM
Cedarford said...: Alex said...
Clint Eastwood on internships

My father used to say to me, "Show 'em what you can do, and don't worry about what you're gonna get. Say you'll work for free and make yourself invaluable"

================
Eastwood's dad was a home electrician with a family to support.
I doubt he ever did a job where he did not expect to be paid for his work.
Nor did Clint heed his advise in his own line of work and ever offer to "work for free" unless that work was tied to a contract giving him a cut of the final profits on a project.
You know - after long work with pay in the industry when his reputation and box office draw was established enough to make himself indispensible.; 12/20/12, 3:06 PM
David said...: The plaintiffs were not forced to take these jobs. They made a calculation that it would be a career boost.

When they get their money, do you suppose they are going to share it with Mom and Dad, who supported them through the internship?; 12/20/12, 3:08 PM
David said...: No more pro bono legal clinics staffed by law students!; 12/20/12, 3:10 PM
Dante said...: They been forcing my kids to do community service. I wonder if the School owes them minimum wage too?; 12/20/12, 3:14 PM
Alex said...: More about Eastwood's early life:

He worked at a number of jobs, including lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, and golf caddy.[14]

According to the CBS press release for Rawhide, Universal Studios (then known as Universal-International) was shooting in Fort Ord when an assistant noticed Eastwood and arranged for him to meet the series' director.[20] According to Eastwood's official biography, a man named Chuck Hill was instrumental in securing employment for Eastwood at Universal;[20] Hill, who had contacts in Hollywood, managed to sneak Eastwood into one of Universal's studios, where he showed him to cameraman Irving Glassberg.[20] Glassberg arranged for Eastwood to have an audition with Arthur Lubin who, although impressed with Eastwood's appearance and 6-foot-4-inch (1.93 m) frame,[21] initially questioned his acting skills, remarking, "He was quite amateurish. He didn't know which way to turn or which way to go or do anything".[22] Lubin suggested Eastwood attend drama classes, and arranged for his initial contract in April 1954 at $100 (US$865 in 2012 dollars[23]) per week.[22; 12/20/12, 3:17 PM
Kirk Parker said...: There's some major cognitive dissonance being asked for here. Fine, if as a matter of law "an unpaid internship is only lawful in the context of an educational training program, when the interns do not perform productive work and the employer derives no benefit", well... that's the law, but what possible educational benefit could any unpaid internship have under those rules?; 12/20/12, 3:19 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: ...when the interns do not perform productive work and the employer derives no benefit... what possible educational benefit could any unpaid internship have under those rules?

I dont know... the Clinton school of thought is rather murky on the subject.; 12/20/12, 3:44 PM
jimbino said...: Bye bye freedom of contract.; 12/20/12, 3:55 PM
Wince said...: Imagine if the fine was based on every superfluous word emitted from Charlie Rose's logorrheic yapper.; 12/20/12, 4:25 PM
Indigo Red said...: Because of a really stupid item on my town's last June ballot, city volunteers must now be paid. The unseen and unintended consequence is there are fewer volunteers now because the town can't afford to pay them.; 12/20/12, 5:11 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/20/12, 6:02 PM
Michael said...: Bullshit. What part of "unpaid" was unclear to this....girl.; 12/20/12, 6:02 PM
Douglas B. Levene said...: 1) Most of these unpaid internships violate either federal or state minimum wage laws, or both.

2) The Government ruthlessly enforces minimum wage laws against its enemies - Walmart, MacDonalds, etc. - but utterly ignores blatant violations by its allies - media, publishing, the arts, fashion, law firms, etc.

3) I guess the charitable explanation for the disparate enforcement regimes is that it's more important to give the children of affluent families (who take unpaid internships at Charlie Rose) a leg up in getting their careers started than it is to give the children of poor families (who would be happy to work at MacDonalds) a chance to get on even the lowest rung of the employment ladder.

4) Either minimum wage laws should be abolished (my choice) or enforced equally.; 12/20/12, 7:12 PM
n.n said...: There is a pattern emerging.

Democrats protest unpaid internships. Democrats are caught not paying their interns.

Democrats support financial reform. Democrats are caught abusing the financial system.

Democrats support equal pay. Obama doesn't pay the men and women on his staff equally.

Democrats support increasing taxes. Democrats avoid or fail to pay taxes.

Democrats protest undeclared wars, torture, assassination, etc. Democrats pursue wars without Congressional oversight, pursue delegated torture, logarithmically increase assassinations, etc.

Democrats say one thing and do exactly the opposite. Democrats are utterly predictable and mundane... until they reduce the people to become servants of the state (i.e. the Democrat minority interest). Actually, that too is predictable. No wonder the classical Progressives left them in droves. Now it's just progressive corruption approaching conclusive corruption.; 12/20/12, 9:25 PM
Wince said...: We're all about to become involuntary unpaid "interns" of the government.; 12/20/12, 10:50 PM
Anonymous said...: When I was in college, my fellow students and I shopped around at various companies, comparing notes on which paid the best for 4 month and 6 month internships/co-ops. I have to admit that I find the idea of an unpaid internship rather fascinating.

Sure, we didn't get any benefits and had absolutely no job security. But depending on where you wanted to live, we were talking $20-$35/hr for 35-40/wk. This was ~7 years ago in the midwest. We were expected to work, however... "networking" was something that happened incidently.; 12/20/12, 11:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Why aren't lefties upset about all these universities who offer Peace and Conflict Studies, and the like, majors?

After all these students learn no skills that would make them employable, and the universities actually take hundreds of thousands of borrowed dollars for them, then render them less employable at graduation. At least an unpaid internship doesn't cost anything and can be put on a resume.

Why aren't they upset...because left professors and administrators are the ones profiting off this system. Maybe if the interns had to pay tuition to a university to work at an unpaid internship they'd embrace them.; 12/21/12, 12:14 AM
Unknown said...: I was an unpaid intern on the 'Charlie Rose Show' in 1995. At the time, I was also working in the NY/United Nations bureau of Japan's leading newspaper (the Asahi Shimbun), making a decent living, but wanted some more TV experience on my resume before looking for my next job in journalism. None of the interns made coffee or did grunt work -- we did background research on guests, read newly (or about-to-be) published books, met fascinating and famous people, saw how TV scripts were written, etc., etc. Perhaps conditions have worsened, but in my day, I certainly didn't feel exploited, nor do I recall other interns complaining.; 12/21/12, 2:00 PM
Baron Zemo said...: I met Charlie Rose at a basketball game once.

If you look up "Pretentious Prick" in the dictonary you will find his picture.; 12/21/12, 11:32 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Interns are simply there to make coffee, order pizza and be cigar holders.

Didn't the Clinton adminstration teach you guys anything?; 12/21/12, 11:34 PM