Interns and the Entertainment Business - Is it Slavery?

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An internship program is meant to provide the intern with supervised training in a profession or occupation such as a medical student working in a hospital assisting and learning from experienced doctors. 

However, many companies, and especially those in the Entertainment field, have turned internship programs into free labor camps.  Instead of providing supervised training in a specific area, many entertainment companies require the interns to simply work for free doing dull menial tasks such as entering names into a database.

College students eager for a chance to work in entertainment are taken advantage of and turned into free labor.   The "internships" are usually not educational or training oriented and instead amount to drudgery with no pay.

Certain radio stations owned by Cumulus Radio, for example, use interns to perform routine clerical tasks for free or to serve as free roadies who travel to locations and set up stages or equipment for promotions.   They also work inside the stations doing routine administrative or marketing support work like entering the names of contestants into a computer program.   They do all of this for free.  

These radio interns are not being trained or educated, instead they are being exploited for free labor.   They just do the work that another paid worker could do and there is often no educational component.  Importantly, these internship programs do not benefit the intern, instead the intern is exploited and the company benefits from free labor.     

In the past, the U.S. Department of Labor turned a blind eye to it, but now the law has changed and interns can no longer be forced to work for free.  Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor issued Fact Sheet #17: Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.   This document sets for the new rules for internship programs.  Fact Sheet 17 states that most all interns at private companies will be deemed employees who are entitled to wages and overtime pay.  This means that there is a presumption that the interns are really employees who must be paid for their work. 

In order for a company internship to be deemed a bona fide internship program, the following six criteria will be applied:

1.     The Internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;

2.     The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;

3.     The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under the close supervision of existing staff;

4.     The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

5.     The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and

6.     The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

If all six of the above criteria are met, the intern will not be considered an employee who is entitled to wages and overtime pay.  Under these rules, I would bet that most internship programs in the entertainment industry are suspect.  The ones that I have heard about in the radio industry fail miserably and the interns are really just employees who must be paid wages and overtime pay.    

Are Interns Abused: Their Right to Minumum Wage and Overtime Pay

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Lately, there has been a crack down on internship abuse by the Federal Department of Labor and many states such as California, New York and Oregon.  The recession has created a unique climate for abuse because many companies need to lower costs and there are now thousands of eager young college students clamoring for a chance to get real world work experience.   As a result, many companies recruit interns with the prospect of educational and career experience but what the interns get instead is forced drudgery and no pay.   See the New York Times article on this subject.  

Many corporate internships are unpaid - the interns believe they will get a genuine resume building experience but instead wind up packing boxes or shinning door knobs.  Normally, employees must be paid minimum wage and overtime pay.   But the free interns are not protected - they work for free. 

Proponents of the free internship programs claim that it is a great opportunity for students and employers alike.   But others believe that the unpaid internships are grossly unfair because only well heeled students can afford to work for free and the free programs are rife with abuse.   See The Harvard Political Review article "Weighing In: Are Interns Slaves?  

The free internship party is now over as government agencies are targeting these programs.  Now, companies can only offer free internship programs if the program meets a rigorous six part test developed by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.   The goal is to prevent companies from converting internship programs into forced free labor and to instead ensure that the programs are truly educational training programs.  

As for the interns, they stand to recover back pay for all of those hours worked - they are entitled to be paid for their work and now they have the legal right to recover that pay.