Issa: White House unpaid internships are not fair

Source: The Hill

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is questioning the logic behind the White House's unpaid internships and volunteer positions.

As the Obama administration gears up to fight private companies on those jobs, some of which the Department of Labor could soon declare illegal, Issa expressed concern over the weekend that the White House offers those positions without pay too.

...

"If the government can't do it, certainly it's not fair to ask the private sector to do it in this case," the congressman told Fox News in the article to which his tweet links.

...

His remarks arrive days after he sent a letter to the White House, asking federal officials to list how many unpaid positions they staff each year.

But Issa's concerns aside, unpaid internships are hardly new to the job-hunting world -- especially not the White House.

In fact, the White House's current webpage clearly specifies its internships are without pay. An archived version of the White House website under former President George W. Bush suggests federal officials sought to hire up to 300 interns a year, all unpaid.

Read more: http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/3505-issa-white-house-unpaid-internships-unfair

IT happens in a lot of fields. We have interns here at our TV station that aren't paid either.

Prostitution is still illegal.

;-)

wipe his ass. But make sure C street can still have their unpaid slaves.

that they exist, but that many are not internships at in that the interns are not doing things related to their field of study/employment, but end up doing housekeeping, personal errands, and such. Actually doing menial work rather than being an learning novice to skilled craftsmen/professional. So if an unpaid intern at a news show for example, spent all their time running errands and babysitting for the producer, that would not be an internship. If instead he/she spent their time assisting camera, sound, writing, etc, then it would be an internship and unpaid would be okay.

THey need someone to do the menial tasks. So they ask an intern to do it. IT's sad, but true.

to broadcasting. Sad, but true? It's attitudes like that why we need some crack downs. Personally I hope your station get tagged.

I wouldn't want an intern handling any part of the on-camera responsibilities until I knew I could count on them to be on time, follow directions, and stand to be criticized.

Not saying they shouldn't be paid, but I understand why they are gophers first.

An intern cleaning a camera, or organizing a video closet is one thing. An intern cleaning bathrooms and picking up dry cleaning is another. Decent college run internship programs actually survey and audit the interns work activities to assure that it is related to the area of study.

The issue is whether these are educational activities focused primarily on benefiting the intern by providing training and experience, or whether these are essentially unpaid workers doing things that primarily benefit the employer and that displace paid workers.

If you're learning how to hold a camera, use it, edit video, structure news reports, etc., etc., you can easily learn by doing and since you're learning not receiving pay (or receiving just a stipend) is justified; this can take a while, depending on the expertise that's being imparted, and you're an unpaid intern. However, if you learn to hold the camera the first day and by the third week you're essentially just working as a cameraman for free; if you learn how to edit video and structure reports in the first month and for the next two months you're just editing video with no more supervision than any (other?) employee but with no pay; then you're not an unpaid intern, you're an unpaid employee.

What you may have in mind are things like my research assistantship one year. I spent the year not assisting in researching, but in returning books to the library, photocopying, filing, sorting papers, typing letters and responding to emails, arranging lodging for conference participants. Administrative stuff. If an unpaid intern is used for that, the intern is displacing a paid office assistant.

This holds, at both levels, both for Fox News and for the White House.

He's the same dude that got the "Recall Governor Gray Davis" campaign going in California, and helped to put in Governor Ahhnold.

He was also one of the spearheaders during the 2000 US Presidential election that tried to disrupt and stop the Florida recount.

but that pic of Bachman always makes me stop down. What the hell would cause that expression?

first term as Minnesota's U.S. Rep for the 52nd District.

First, the kids are paying for their own training through their colleges, and it's supposed to exposed the interns to actual training so that they can develop real world skills, not just being someone's personal assistant.

Second, they favor the kids that can work for free because they're living off of someone else, mostly their parents.

On this thread, someone is arguing that an internship at a TV studio means menial tasks. Well, I would advise those kids that instead of running around and fetching lunch for someone, they should instead produce their own local cable access show which could give them all the real world skills in TV production that they need or create their own TV shows on the internet. Just grab a camera from somewhere and do your own report on the Tea party rallies for your school's TV network or just post it on YouTube.

In other cases, I'd recommend that kids work for a non-profit. You'd be surprised at how much you can do and learn when helping an organization that actually NEEDS the help. Fetching someone's dry cleaning or walking their dog is not professional experience.

The interns are doing work and if you do work you have to be paid for it whether it is at the White House or a private company. I worked at the Dept. of Labor for 14 years and the DOL fines companies when they catch them with unpaid interns. They should do the same at the White House. It is against the law. Most interns don't complain about this form of unpaid servitude because they are trying to get a job at some point from the employer. So the DOL does not know about it. But just because someone is not complaining does not make it legal.

It is against the federal wage and hour law.

for a few months or a year can get them. I speak as someone who was fortunate enough to do a House internship in college because of a mom who worked when she really wasn't up to it emotionally at all. It opened doors for me and I owe her a lot for her sacrifice.

What we have is rule by people who already have plenty.

The voices of people who don't have enough must be heard in the halls of power if we are ever going to have a just and decent society.

Internships often get people on the fast track to positions of influence.

By making unpaid internships so important, we've cut off a huge section of young people from the halls of power before they're even out of college.

I did an internship with a minimal stipend and paid housing, but technically it was unpaid.

But I wasn't rich or wealthy, not even close.

Though I agree with the sentiment that it is near impossible to compete with someone who has the resources to work for free when you do not.

starting at the bottom and working your way up the ladder, and so on??

Our supervisors encouraged us to go to committee hearings, speakers, or any other events that were going on. They also arranged tours of the White House, Pentagon, and FBI for all of the interns. We were assigned some menial work but really not much and there was no sense that we were "on the clock" given that we were not being paid.

I agree that if interns are primarily doing grunt work, they ought to be paid. But some people don't intern to break into the field, they do it simply for a short term educational experience to earn college credit. In this case, I don't see a problem with the current system.