

Reddit's unpaid "internship" offer is apparently against labor laws - vaksel
http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/

======
viraptor
This is confusing... looking at it from the "if I was the target audience"
perspective:

General idea: unpaid work is a strange idea, but I didn't have anything else
planned - why not?

Looking at the blog: 20h/week - that's cool, they're not expecting any actual
work done. "Manage relationships with merchandise providers" - wait what?
"help negotiate new licensing agreements" - phone monkey? "manage workflow of
merchandise production from end to end" - doing actual work? with
_responsibilities_??

I'm confused about who they're looking for. It looks like they need unpaid
salespeople / junior account managers. But if someone can do the sales /
manager position with ~1-month training and be useful for the other 2
months... I'm sure s/he can find a better position which actually pays
commission.

~~~
alex_c
They're looking for people who are competent, but who are either naive,
terrible at selling themselves to an employer, or vastly underestimating their
ability to find a good paid position.

~~~
viraptor
Exactly, but that might work for example for a programmer (or some other not
customer-facing position). How can someone negotiate a good deal if they're
naive, underestimating, or terrible at selling themselves? Serious companies
would try to hire exactly the other kind of people...

------
jokermatt999
Direct link to the comment.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qq2iz?context=3)

According to the admins, Conde Naste's legal department cleared them, but I'm
not sure. It looks like this could get ugly. The reddit community has a nasty
habit of lashing out hard when they don't like something, but it usually blows
over after a week or two. However, I've never seen it in the case where there
could be legal action.

~~~
vaksel
with lawyers it's usually not a case of whether something is legal or
not...it's a case of whether or not there is a risk of something being
enforced.

I'm sure the admins attitude of "If you think it is illegal, don't apply."
isn't going to help them either.

------
tptacek
Why the hell isn't Conde Nast simply paying interns?

Guess: because they're actually really not OK with having interns (go! having
an HR department!) and so the only way for the Reddit team to synthesize
headcount was in this under-the-table fashion.

~~~
tedunangst
There's a comment saying Conde has hundreds of interns. They don't pay them
because nobody in publishing pays any of their interns.

~~~
samd
This has been a common practice at media companies for many years.

~~~
gte910h
And hopefully will be fixed with definitive enforcement, turning these
internships into jobs.

------
dantheman
I don't see why anyone would share care about the details of internship
contract, unless they personally involved. I see no problem with unpaid
internships -- i never did one, nor would I offer one. Unless of course I was
losing money on the deal and I was doing it to just be nice.

How is an unpaid internship different than becoming involved in an open source
project?

How is an unpaid internship different than helping a professor with their
research?

How is an unpaid internship different than volunteering at a soup kitchen or
some other nonprofit?

~~~
gte910h
>I don't see why anyone would share care about the details of internship
contract, unless they personally involved.

Depresses pay. Tilts the workforce towards those who come from wealthy
parents. Raises barriers to entry to career switching which decrease economic
flexibility

------
jpdbaugh
Just pay them minimum wage if that is all you can afford. This trend of kids
being forced to take an unpaid internship for college credit is really hurting
kids who pay their own way through school or just need to have a paying job in
the summer for one reason or another. Really, in the grand scheme of things it
can't cost much to pay minimum wage and I think better work will get done.

------
Zak
Regardless of the letter of the law, I don't see why anybody should be upset
about this. Laws intended to keep people from taking unfair advantage of
others who willingly agree to the arrangement are often horribly broken in
that they treat a variety of situations where all parties receive benefits
which are satisfactory to them as exploitative.

~~~
gte910h
It also discriminates towards people of means. If I had rich parents, I could
afford to work there for nothing. As a person who paid for myself, I'd be
unable to have done that at the start of my career

~~~
hugh3
So? Children of rich parents have all sorts of opportunities which aren't open
to children of poor parents. Tutors, private schools, painless grad school.

Interning at reddit is hardly at the top of the list.

------
kwyjibo
They don't have any money to pay the interns
([http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qqfoe))
, but have money for 2 offices and money to hire a lawyer to check if their
internships are legal.

------
tvon
If they're going to be doing anything of value, pay them. What's the big deal?

------
justinph
I believe the commenter on reddit is mistaken. If you're doing an internship
for class credit (as is indicated in reddit's blog post), it can be unpaid.

Note: I'm not a tax lawyer, so don't quote me on this.

~~~
_delirium
It has to not seem like a sham class, though, at least if anyone actually
investigates it. Just the fact that you get course credit isn't really enough;
it also has to be mainly educational, not just a job relabeled as a class.
Here's the federal government's six-part test for it:
<http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf>

------
proee
The idea of an unpaid internship is abominable. Most interns in these
positions need money desperately to pay their student loans (or maybe their
living expenses???).

While it may not be illegal, it still generates a foul stench that reflects
poorly on the founders of the company.

I'd be more than happy to stand with a group of interns to help them protest
this madness. Give me a sign and I'll stand on the street corner with you
demanding justice.

Bottom line, the "haves" are not willing to give (even a little) to the "have-
nots".

------
tlrobinson
Unpaid internships are very common. As I understand it if you get course
credit they don't have to pay you, hence the "we're legally required to ask
you for a Letter of Credit".

~~~
vaksel
apparently they are all breaking the law

lots of info in this comment:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qq6jd)

~~~
tlrobinson
If they are then the laws aren't being enforced very often.

Here's Reddit's response to these accusations:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qqfoe)

~~~
scott_s
I found this response relevant:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/c7vdo/call_for_interns/c0qr367)

------
smackfu
"Yeah, that's actually a labor violation in both California and New York. Many
upvotes to the Redditor that turns the admins in."

Man, those guys are dicks.

------
lionhearted
Under this definition, my internship at the Massachusetts Statehouse was
illegal unpaid labor.

This opportunity looks like a bad deal to me, I wouldn't do it personally, but
trying to criminalize voluntary exchanges is no good in my opinion. Someone
proactive about learning and making connections could benefit A LOT from this
sort of thing and gain a lot more than $7/hour in value. Not my cup of tea,
but I can see how it'd make sense for someone and I don't like seeing two
people forbidden from a voluntary exchange they both think would work well for
them.

~~~
vaksel
by that logic, minimum wage and child labor laws should be illegal. If a child
wants to work...who are you to stop them?

~~~
lionhearted
> by that logic, minimum wage

Minimum wage laws hurt people sometimes. They're not just benevolent laws that
increase pay. It means that some low margin businesses won't be operated, and
some low skilled people who aren't capable of doing work worth the minimum
wage won't be able to find jobs.

> and child labor laws should be illegal. If a child wants to work...who are
> you to stop them?

What's a "child"? Is someone 14 years old and mature, disciplined, and learned
a child? Should they be allowed to work if they want to? How about an
extremely bright 12 year old? No dice, no matter what?

I think people with a level of maturity and understanding should be allowed to
make voluntary transactions, yes. I won't stop them. In fact, I think anyone
who would stop two consenting adults from making a voluntary transaction, no
matter how well intentioned, is doing a bad thing.

~~~
vaksel
minimum wage laws mean you are making enough to live.

If you are making the minimum wage, and work 40 hours a week, that's $1,160 a
month/$2,320 if they work 80 hours a week.

Can someone really survive if they are being paid even less than that? Let's
say you pay someone $5 an hour because someone is desperate they'll take any
job...and they work 80 hours a week, that's only $1,600 a month. Can you
survive on that?

Yes some law margin businesses won't be operated, but that just means people
won't have to work like slaves just to pay rent.

So you would be fine with a 12 year old working in the coal mines? By law,
anyone under 18 is not considered an adult.

I guess by your logic, you'd have no problem with pedophilia, after all big
bad law is stopping a 30 year old from banging a 12 year old.

~~~
lionhearted
$13,900 per year ($1,160 per month) puts you in the top 15% of earners
worldwide. You can absolutely live on that anywhere, including any city in the
United States, including Tokyo, including Hong Kong, and so on. You'll be able
to get a bed, a shared bathroom, and enough healthy food at that money. And of
course, as soon as there's an opportunity to make more, you move on and do so.

If you want to talk about high cost of living in the USA, I agree with you.
Prices are artificially high in the USA for a number of reasons. If you
removed just a few laws that aren't doing much good, a solid meal would
probably cost around $1 to $2 - last time I was there, you could get a decent
$2 meal in Taipei and a 2 euro meal in Berlin for instance. Prices in America
are higher than they should be due to some corruption and stupidity, but even
with the artificially high prices $14k is a heck of a lot of money by almost
standard at almost any time in history.

As for the rest of your comment, I don't think the practice of running
immediately to extreme edge cases is the best way to have a discussion. I
started with the point that a 20 year old should be able to intern at a
company if they want to, and you want to move the discussion to coal mines and
pedophilia?

Edge cases are useful to discuss, but probably secondary in importance to
general principles. If you agree that in general stopping mature, capable
humans of doing voluntary transactions is a bad thing, then we can look at the
edge cases and try to figure out some lines. But to answer your main point,
absolutely $13,900 per year is a fantastically large amount of money that can
be lived fairly well on. No Starbucks, no $12 movie tickets, but food,
housing, and other necessities? Absolutely possible, that's a huge amount of
money. I've lived on much less comfortably, and most of the world would kill
to live on that $13,900 per year.

~~~
vaksel
sure you can live on $13,900 a year in some third world hell hole, but in that
third world hell hole, your $13,900 would actually be $2,900/yr.

Sure a solid meal would cost only $1 to $2...all we need to remove is the part
that doesn't allow companies to sell you contaminated beef, or the part that
states that a company needs to state nutritional information on the back of
the package.

You can't compare a salary, without taking cost of living into the equation.

Ok let's take that $1,160 a month..and cut off a 1/3 for taxes, unemlpoyment
insurance, social security etc. You are stuck with $765 a month.

Please tell me how you'd live on $765 a month. And remember to live, you need
to pay rent, pay for utilities, pay for food, pay for gas/bus tickets.

Sure you lived on less than that...but I bet at the time, you stayed with your
mommy and daddy...or you lived on campus where your loans or once again mommy
and daddy paid for rent.

Yes most of the world would kill to live on $13,900 a year....but most of the
world, doesn't have the same high cost of living as we do in US.

~~~
lionhearted
I'll answer this comment, but before I do, can I ask a question? - What's your
goal behind this discussion? Are you trying to learn, debate, convince me,
convince other people, just pass the time? I posted originally to share my
perspective with people, and then I try to respond to comments and inquiries
to get a good discussion going. Because I can answer your comment seriously if
you're open-minded and think there's a chance your views will evolve.
Likewise, I'm open to my views evolving if I see something good. Otherwise, if
it's for third parties or just entertainment, I'll probably break from this
comment thread since I've said the basics of what I think and probably not so
many people are following it any more. Anyways...

> Ok let's take that $1,160 a month..and cut off a 1/3 for taxes, unemlpoyment
> insurance, social security etc. You are stuck with $765 a month.

Well, three points. First, you pay a bit less than that in taxes at the low
end. Second, I already said I'm not in favor of this kind of forced law and
I'm not in favor of an income tax, uninsurance, or social security at all.
Third, if you are paying taxes that high, you're probably funding benefits
that you can get. So you're either living on $765 after taxes but then you get
government benefits, or most of $1160 with lower taxes. But let's say that's
roughly a wash and your real pay in cash and/or benefits is $1000 per month.

I did a quick search in the Chicago Craigslist just to pick a random big city.
There's quite a few roommates/shared bedrooms in the $400 to $500 per month
range. If you look, I'm sure you can find cheaper. I was in Hong Kong two
months ago. You can pay $15/night for very small private room/shared bathroom
in a cheap place on Kowloon. An all you can ride train pass is between $70 and
$120 in most large cities. So we're at $500 now for rent and transport in a
city. You can eat oatmeal and rice and beans as your staples, then mix in a
little tuna fish, chicken, and fruit and vegetables. Oatmeal and rice beans
are so cheap they're basically free, you're looking at $20 to $30 the entire
month total for 60 meals. Go crazy and say $5 worth of protein, fruits, and
vegetables per day and your food budget is $170. You drink tap water which is
almost free, instant coffee will run you $10 to $20 for the month. So that's
under $200. If you cook with people, you can eat better food for the same
prices. Buy whatever's on sale for meal, fruit, and vegetables, in Los Angeles
last year I was sometimes able to get a medium sized pack of Strawberries for
$2 at Ralph's when they'd shipped too many.

Really, anyone who doesn't think $1000/month is livable in the USA has been
incredibly blessed. Plenty of immigrants and people working their way up live
on much less. You share space with multiple people, maybe you only get 1/4th
of a large bedroom with three other roommates and share one bathroom and a
small kitchen. You cook most of your meals and don't eat out much. You take
public transit, walk, or a bicycle. It's not glamorous, it's not awesome, it's
not fun, but it's doable. And again, the goal isn't to stay in a low wage job
forever, we're doing all this math with a 40 hour work week, which is plenty
of time to look for other opportunities, train yourself, etc.

As for me when I lived poor - I dropped out of high school and left home at
16, and never took a dime in cash from my parents since leaving home. Not a
single dime. So the mommy and daddy comment isn't quite accurate. Ah, I was
about to share a story about what life was like back then, but it'd take a
while to type. It's not awesome, but you survive, grow, do what you can to
improve, and you make it.

But I'll ask if you don't mind answering: what's your objective here? Are you
open to changing your mind on this if I give reasonable, well thought answers
to your questions? I don't mind spending the time on this if something
positive could come of it.

~~~
vaksel
just having a discussion.

Technically you pay less in taxes on the low end, but those taxes get taken
out every two weeks, you just get a refund at the end of the year.

It doesn't really matter what you are in favor of, the taxes will still be
taken out of your paycheck. Of course you get things in exchange for your
taxes. It's nice to say "well in the perfect world you could live on X", but
we don't live in a perfect world. That's why I'm no longer a liberterian.

Fine let's say you have $1,000 per month in cash.

And fine, let's say you find a roommate deal at $450 a month.(btw once again,
don't bring up hong kong or other countries, we are talking about you wanting
to eliminate American minimum wage). Oh and let's not forget the $450 deals
are fairly rare, so if millions of people start getting paid below minimum
wage, those few good deals will be snagged up quickly.

Anyways that leaves $550.

Minus your $70 for the train pass, $480.

The food issue is a good one. The $200 you spend, gets you just enough not to
starve to death. Do you think 40 hours of labor shouldn't be enough to avoid
not starving?

So we are down to $280 a month.

But have you forgotten something? The water bill? The gas bill? The
electricity bill? The phone bill? What about all those other expenses? Like
health insurance, replacement clothing, etc?

And of course the goal is to get a better paying job. But by not having a
minimum wage, you have wage depression. When you can pay entry level slaves $3
an hour, you can pay the guy with 6 years experience $5 an hour. And what kind
of mobility do you think someone working at MickeyDs have?

The goal here, is for you to realize, that there needs to be a living wage.
Where working 40 hours a week, should be enough to make ends meet.

How about the ideal of the 50s? Where you could work 40 hours a week in an
entry level job, and could afford a house with white picket fence, a car, and
basic luxuries and could support your family?

Your whole argument is based around a young, single, healthy guy, going
through a rough patch. Not the situation, that the minimum wage laws were
created for.

What's with this idea that the people should be ground down into the dirt? We
already have 39.1 million people in poverty in United States, why do you think
we need to increase that number?

The difference between $7 an hour and $3 an hour for Mickey Ds, is measured in
them selling 1 extra big mac.

For every person who crawls out of poverty like you did, there are thousands
who stay there indefinitely. We live in America, not a 3rd world hellhole, and
our cost of living reflects that.

I doubt there is anything you can say, that'll make me agree that someone
living in New York City, should be allowed to be paid $3 an hour

