7 ms·

Along these lines, it doesn't fit to equate unpaid internships to serfdom. Serfdom involves effectively permanent, near total servitude to a landowner for most

Along these lines, it doesn't fit to equate unpaid internships to serfdom. Serfdom involves effectively permanent, near total servitude to a landowner for most aspects of life. You don't travel. You don't get educated. You don't have upside. You can't escape. You're screwed. An unpaid internship is not at all like this. Unpaid internships are not "essentially a form of serfdom". No, but that's how serfdom started - through voluntary servitude. The point isn't to equate 21st century Europe or US with pre-19th century Russia. The point is that serfdom is a form of voluntary servitude which people entered into out of desperation. Likewise, nobody works for free (outside of charitable work) unless they are desperate (or they are rich kids, and don't need to care). Companies exploit this through unpaid internships - assuming they can get away with it. Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so. Minimum wage laws exist for a number of reasons. If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. So employers can exploit the system to boost their profits. Second, how does it fail to protect people ? Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?

allenp 15y ago
"Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?" You're joking right? Have you seen any of the immigration reform/debate over the last 5 years in the US? One of the primary arguments is over the availability of labor so cheap that not even prisoners will take the jobs.
- zeemonkee 15y ago
  That's my point - why is it a controversial issue ? How did we go so low ?
- irishstu 15y ago
  It's creeping in slowly here in Ireland. That's why I spoke up.
caser 15y ago
"Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so." I disagree. My unpaid jobs have always been much more accommodating when I leave - they realize they're not paying me so they don't give me a hard time at all. It's more of an attitude of, "We knew this day would come. Good luck, and if you need references or anything feel free to ask." My paid jobs have generally been a bit more stubborn, like leaving insulted them. Also, many unpaid internships give at least enough experience to have something to talk about in a job interview. I know my unpaid work was critical in landing a paid internship in January. While some people may take advantage of students and the poor work environment, you can't make a blanket statement and say every unpaid internship is unequivocally bad.
- zeemonkee 15y ago
  You completely missed my point. If unpaid internships become the norm, that is it becomes expected that a person has to perform a period of unpaid work as some kind of apprenticeship, then they will be forced to do so if they want a paid job at the end of it. So I might walk away from an unpaid internship, but I'll still need to work unpaid in another internship until at such point employers deem that I've done my time. Therefore the individual has no choice but to accept unpaid work - regardless of which company they happen to be working for. It's a bad precedent that needs to be stamped out.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    Your argument applies equally well to any screening procedure - e.g., college degrees. Do you believe that requiring/favoring people with college is also a bad precedent that needs to be stamped out?
    - kbatten 15y ago
      I think the value of a college degree as a screening procedure is in fact dropping. The potential value of college education is still high, but the piece of paper doesn't really give any insight into what value the student took. All it shows is that the student payed the fee (and probably is in debt) and put in his/her time.
cturner 15y ago
If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? I have a couple of problems with this, and will do my best to explain my reaction, but am not entirely happy with clarity. I think you're making a static view of the world, and are not considering the dynamic of the system. Legislation like the minimum wage has an effect on the economic systems that you apply it to. It changes the numer and nature of employers, and the number and nature of employees. It's impossible to measure the opportunity cost, but we can talk about the sort of costs we'll be taking. There are potential businesses that would exist if they could pay less than they do. This would create greater economic activity in general, and skill development. Both of these things which would feed back into stronger businesses and ultimately demand for labour, higher wages, lower tax. The Internet should offer us awesome opportunities to reduce knowledge asymetry coming from labour being misallocated, or taken advantage of. Consider a version of linked-in that was oriented around networks that tried to offer and make contracts. You could see who worked with who, and then the contracts that were on offer. I doubt Linked-in will go in this direction - it would piss off recruiters. It'll happen though. Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ? Outside of America, questioning this is one of those "things you can't say". A politician who made these arguments in I'm putting is remarkable to survive at all, and definitely hated for life - Thatcher is the obvious example. The last change of power in Australia was caused by exactly these issues. Chile is lining up to have it out on these lines in the next year and will be interesting to watch. The caricature of the right wing leader who's out to screw the workers to help the big end of town is like honey to the mindset of people who see themselves as victims, and who don't recognise that they are in control of their own fate. There's always a labour movement party (run by teachers, lawyers and party workers) in there reminding people that they are victims, pushing those images, and suckling on the milk of votes that this easy play delivers. Except in American - a country where labour flexibility and entreprenerialism are central to the culture. Another evil I forgot to mention about minimum wage earier is the trap effect. Imagine your effective wage is worth less than minimum wage, but you've managed to land a dead-end job making minimum wage. Now you have a disincentive to refocus on something that would make you more valuable than minimum wage. That pattern repeats at other levels of the economy. You sometimes see areas of government, banks or protected "national champion" businesses dominated by people who don't do much but also don't make trouble. They're keeping a low profile because the employer is able to pay too much because of the luxury of its legislative protections. Left unchecked, the good staff (who care about what they do) gradually leave for other gigs, and you get overrun by pretenders.
yummyfajitas 15y ago
If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. If a potential employer chooses not to employ someone, who pays? The welfare system. For either low pay or no pay, low value workers will require welfare. I don't see how this is a valid argument for a minimum wage.
- zeemonkee 15y ago
  Well, the employer gets cheap (or even free) labour - and therefore higher profits - paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, the employer is exploiting the system as much as any "welfare queen". Sure, workers on minimum wage may receive benefits - but they would require less benefits than if there was no minimum wage.
  - pessimizer 15y ago
    "In 2004, a year in which Wal-Mart reported $9.1 billion in profits, the retailer's California employees collected $86 million in public assistance, according to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. [...]In 2004, Democratic staffers of the House education and workforce committee calculated that each 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an average of more than $400,000 a year, based on entitlements ranging from energy-assistance grants to Medicaid to food stamps to WIC—the federal program that provides food to low-income women with children." http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/america-195-week http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/america-195-week And this is with a minimum wage.
    - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
      Bull. The store didn't create the problem. The numbers may be correct; the conclusion is yellow journalism. The store may even help alleviate the problem, by providing Some income for these people. Its not very clever to ask WalMart to just pay these people more; how about UCBerkely show some sincerity and pay them themselves?
      - pessimizer 15y ago
philwelch 15y ago
Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue? It's a question of producing wealth. The value of a day's work depends upon the worker, but you can't seriously expect a business to pay someone more than the amount of wealth they create for them. If it's a fundamental human right to have a certain level of income, pass a law providing for a guaranteed minimum income and let businesses pay the market rate. It makes no sense to expect businesses to operate as charities.

allenp 15y ago

"Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?" You're joking right? Have you seen any of the immigration reform/debate over the last 5 years in the US? One of the primary arguments is over the availability of labor so cheap that not even prisoners will take the jobs.

zeemonkee 15y ago
That's my point - why is it a controversial issue ? How did we go so low ?
irishstu 15y ago
It's creeping in slowly here in Ireland. That's why I spoke up.

caser 15y ago

"Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so." I disagree. My unpaid jobs have always been much more accommodating when I leave - they realize they're not paying me so they don't give me a hard time at all. It's more of an attitude of, "We knew this day would come. Good luck, and if you need references or anything feel free to ask." My paid jobs have generally been a bit more stubborn, like leaving insulted them. Also, many unpaid internships give at least enough experience to have something to talk about in a job interview. I know my unpaid work was critical in landing a paid internship in January. While some people may take advantage of students and the poor work environment, you can't make a blanket statement and say every unpaid internship is unequivocally bad.

zeemonkee 15y ago
You completely missed my point. If unpaid internships become the norm, that is it becomes expected that a person has to perform a period of unpaid work as some kind of apprenticeship, then they will be forced to do so if they want a paid job at the end of it. So I might walk away from an unpaid internship, but I'll still need to work unpaid in another internship until at such point employers deem that I've done my time. Therefore the individual has no choice but to accept unpaid work - regardless of which company they happen to be working for. It's a bad precedent that needs to be stamped out.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Your argument applies equally well to any screening procedure - e.g., college degrees. Do you believe that requiring/favoring people with college is also a bad precedent that needs to be stamped out?
  - kbatten 15y ago
    I think the value of a college degree as a screening procedure is in fact dropping. The potential value of college education is still high, but the piece of paper doesn't really give any insight into what value the student took. All it shows is that the student payed the fee (and probably is in debt) and put in his/her time.

cturner 15y ago

If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? I have a couple of problems with this, and will do my best to explain my reaction, but am not entirely happy with clarity. I think you're making a static view of the world, and are not considering the dynamic of the system. Legislation like the minimum wage has an effect on the economic systems that you apply it to. It changes the numer and nature of employers, and the number and nature of employees. It's impossible to measure the opportunity cost, but we can talk about the sort of costs we'll be taking. There are potential businesses that would exist if they could pay less than they do. This would create greater economic activity in general, and skill development. Both of these things which would feed back into stronger businesses and ultimately demand for labour, higher wages, lower tax. The Internet should offer us awesome opportunities to reduce knowledge asymetry coming from labour being misallocated, or taken advantage of. Consider a version of linked-in that was oriented around networks that tried to offer and make contracts. You could see who worked with who, and then the contracts that were on offer. I doubt Linked-in will go in this direction - it would piss off recruiters. It'll happen though. Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ? Outside of America, questioning this is one of those "things you can't say". A politician who made these arguments in I'm putting is remarkable to survive at all, and definitely hated for life - Thatcher is the obvious example. The last change of power in Australia was caused by exactly these issues. Chile is lining up to have it out on these lines in the next year and will be interesting to watch. The caricature of the right wing leader who's out to screw the workers to help the big end of town is like honey to the mindset of people who see themselves as victims, and who don't recognise that they are in control of their own fate. There's always a labour movement party (run by teachers, lawyers and party workers) in there reminding people that they are victims, pushing those images, and suckling on the milk of votes that this easy play delivers. Except in American - a country where labour flexibility and entreprenerialism are central to the culture. Another evil I forgot to mention about minimum wage earier is the trap effect. Imagine your effective wage is worth less than minimum wage, but you've managed to land a dead-end job making minimum wage. Now you have a disincentive to refocus on something that would make you more valuable than minimum wage. That pattern repeats at other levels of the economy. You sometimes see areas of government, banks or protected "national champion" businesses dominated by people who don't do much but also don't make trouble. They're keeping a low profile because the employer is able to pay too much because of the luxury of its legislative protections. Left unchecked, the good staff (who care about what they do) gradually leave for other gigs, and you get overrun by pretenders.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. If a potential employer chooses not to employ someone, who pays? The welfare system. For either low pay or no pay, low value workers will require welfare. I don't see how this is a valid argument for a minimum wage.

zeemonkee 15y ago
Well, the employer gets cheap (or even free) labour - and therefore higher profits - paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, the employer is exploiting the system as much as any "welfare queen". Sure, workers on minimum wage may receive benefits - but they would require less benefits than if there was no minimum wage.
- pessimizer 15y ago
  "In 2004, a year in which Wal-Mart reported $9.1 billion in profits, the retailer's California employees collected $86 million in public assistance, according to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. [...]In 2004, Democratic staffers of the House education and workforce committee calculated that each 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an average of more than $400,000 a year, based on entitlements ranging from energy-assistance grants to Medicaid to food stamps to WIC—the federal program that provides food to low-income women with children." http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/america-195-week http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/america-195-week And this is with a minimum wage.
  - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
    Bull. The store didn't create the problem. The numbers may be correct; the conclusion is yellow journalism. The store may even help alleviate the problem, by providing Some income for these people. Its not very clever to ask WalMart to just pay these people more; how about UCBerkely show some sincerity and pay them themselves?
    - pessimizer 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago

Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue? It's a question of producing wealth. The value of a day's work depends upon the worker, but you can't seriously expect a business to pay someone more than the amount of wealth they create for them. If it's a fundamental human right to have a certain level of income, pass a law providing for a guaranteed minimum income and let businesses pay the market rate. It makes no sense to expect businesses to operate as charities.