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In the Netherlands unpaid internships are fine, as long as the main goal is the learning experience. Why would this be illegal if both parties benefit? Exploita

In the Netherlands unpaid internships are fine, as long as the main goal is the learning experience. Why would this be illegal if both parties benefit? Exploitation doesn’t strike me as super likely here, as it’s rather easy to get out and it’s easy to fire abusive employers.

jessmartin 6y ago
That's encouraging to hear that the Netherlands has an allowance for unpaid work when the goal is the learning experience. It's really clear to us at Lambda that the best way to _learn_ to do a thing is to do the _real_ thing, but US Labor Laws can make it difficult to have students doing real work that would provide the best learning experience, which is kinda self-defeating.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > but US Labor Laws can make it difficult to have students doing real work that would provide the best learning experience No, they don't. They make it difficult to not pay people at least the minimum wage for doing real work, whether or not they are students.
  - brentoken 6y ago
    > No, they don't. I would encourage you to look into this more - specifically respecting that there is a massive difference between _real world_ experience and the experience a school can _simulate_. I could refer to literally hundreds of cases where US Labor Laws inhibited students learning experiences in this regard.
lilactown 6y ago
There is already a history of unpaid internships being abused in the USA, as they became the only way for people to enter an industry - entry-level labor became completely saturated by unpaid internships. This causes a whole host of problems. One is that it acts as a filter for people who can afford to spend 1-2 years being an unpaid intern. For a high status industry, this prevents swathes of people who don't have the support networks to afford being unpaid. The other is that, once this becomes an industry standard, entry level labor being so cheap incentivizes bad labor practices. Why hire a senior level talent when we can hire someone to manage 6 unpaid interns? Why promote this person when we can pay them literally nothing?
brudgers 6y ago
I am not a lawyer. In the US, to qualify as an internship the student’s educational institution must meet certain standards. Internships meeting this standard may be unpaid. Student teachers are an ordinary example that happens at scale. The legal strategy here seems to include calling the students “fellows.” Presumably, Lambda School does not meet the educational criteria necessary to provide interns. There’s probably enough fog around “fellow” that retained council applying ask-forgiveness-not-permission would write a memo to cover the forgiveness asking phase not improbable in the future given the similarities between the way this quacks and the unpaid internships Lambda School presumably does not qualify to offer.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > In the US, to qualify as an internship the student’s educational institution must meet certain standards. Internships meeting this standard may be unpaid. Student teachers are an ordinary example that happens at scale. Student teachers almost entirely fall into the rule that "unpaid internships for public sector and non-profit charitable organizations, where the intern volunteers without expectation of compensation, are generally permissible."' https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns...
  - brudgers 6y ago
    Other than plausibly displacing ordinary workers, student teacher internships tend to meet the ordinary requirements as well. The standard that Lambda School would struggle with is "academic credit."
cweagans 6y ago
Take a look at the links I posted. The deciding factor isn't whether or not both parties benefit, but who is the _primary_ beneficiary of the internship. The line is more of a large grey area in the middle, and the consequences for misinterpreting the specifics of an arrangement can mean pretty large financial penalties for a company (wage theft can mean treble damages in some jurisdictions. At a minimum, that's 3x the local minimum wage, but I think I remember reading about a case where a judge determined the fair wage for an employee based on the fair market rate, so damages could have been 3x what's normally paid for somebody in a given position).
light_hue_1 6y ago
Not for long. The EU is finally on the path to banning unpaid internships. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/european-parliament-calls-for-ban-on-unpaid-internships/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/european-parl... In the next few weeks the Council will likely separately adopt a rule that will shortly ban unpaid internships too. So this is all coming to an end thankfully!
- sfvisser 6y ago
  Interesting. I’m obviously not against paying interns money, but this might have the obvious unintended consequence of less available internships. We’ll have to see.

jessmartin 6y ago

That's encouraging to hear that the Netherlands has an allowance for unpaid work when the goal is the learning experience. It's really clear to us at Lambda that the best way to _learn_ to do a thing is to do the _real_ thing, but US Labor Laws can make it difficult to have students doing real work that would provide the best learning experience, which is kinda self-defeating.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> but US Labor Laws can make it difficult to have students doing real work that would provide the best learning experience No, they don't. They make it difficult to not pay people at least the minimum wage for doing real work, whether or not they are students.
- brentoken 6y ago
  > No, they don't. I would encourage you to look into this more - specifically respecting that there is a massive difference between _real world_ experience and the experience a school can _simulate_. I could refer to literally hundreds of cases where US Labor Laws inhibited students learning experiences in this regard.

lilactown 6y ago

There is already a history of unpaid internships being abused in the USA, as they became the only way for people to enter an industry - entry-level labor became completely saturated by unpaid internships. This causes a whole host of problems. One is that it acts as a filter for people who can afford to spend 1-2 years being an unpaid intern. For a high status industry, this prevents swathes of people who don't have the support networks to afford being unpaid. The other is that, once this becomes an industry standard, entry level labor being so cheap incentivizes bad labor practices. Why hire a senior level talent when we can hire someone to manage 6 unpaid interns? Why promote this person when we can pay them literally nothing?

brudgers 6y ago

I am not a lawyer. In the US, to qualify as an internship the student’s educational institution must meet certain standards. Internships meeting this standard may be unpaid. Student teachers are an ordinary example that happens at scale. The legal strategy here seems to include calling the students “fellows.” Presumably, Lambda School does not meet the educational criteria necessary to provide interns. There’s probably enough fog around “fellow” that retained council applying ask-forgiveness-not-permission would write a memo to cover the forgiveness asking phase not improbable in the future given the similarities between the way this quacks and the unpaid internships Lambda School presumably does not qualify to offer.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> In the US, to qualify as an internship the student’s educational institution must meet certain standards. Internships meeting this standard may be unpaid. Student teachers are an ordinary example that happens at scale. Student teachers almost entirely fall into the rule that "unpaid internships for public sector and non-profit charitable organizations, where the intern volunteers without expectation of compensation, are generally permissible."' https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns...
- brudgers 6y ago
  Other than plausibly displacing ordinary workers, student teacher internships tend to meet the ordinary requirements as well. The standard that Lambda School would struggle with is "academic credit."

cweagans 6y ago

Take a look at the links I posted. The deciding factor isn't whether or not both parties benefit, but who is the _primary_ beneficiary of the internship. The line is more of a large grey area in the middle, and the consequences for misinterpreting the specifics of an arrangement can mean pretty large financial penalties for a company (wage theft can mean treble damages in some jurisdictions. At a minimum, that's 3x the local minimum wage, but I think I remember reading about a case where a judge determined the fair wage for an employee based on the fair market rate, so damages could have been 3x what's normally paid for somebody in a given position).

light_hue_1 6y ago

Not for long. The EU is finally on the path to banning unpaid internships. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/european-parliament-calls-for-ban-on-unpaid-internships/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/european-parl... In the next few weeks the Council will likely separately adopt a rule that will shortly ban unpaid internships too. So this is all coming to an end thankfully!

sfvisser 6y ago
Interesting. I’m obviously not against paying interns money, but this might have the obvious unintended consequence of less available internships. We’ll have to see.