Fuck the rich corporations taking advantage of young people.
Let’s celebrate when this is actually a reality and common practice
All this is a bit unfair to these poor souls, how are they going to continue exploiting free labor now? /s
I already know that some people will say that this will reduce the number of internships and that in the end everything will be worse than before.
It might make sense to apply this rule on a sales volume or employee count requirement to not disproportionately “hurt” small companies
I support this (so much, having been in that position myself) but the EU can’t have both a capitalist system and a socialist one.
If you just make conditions more expensive for companies, they just go somewhere else (especially now that the remote work makes it easier for everyone). We need to start discussing a different system focused on sustainability, automation (the good kind that makes us work less, not the shitty one that just makes shareholders richer by firing people), and sharing wealth (for example UBI)
Otherwise, if we want to keep the capitalist system then we’re just not competitive anymore. Why would you hire a European with amazing benefits when you can just abuse an American to work twice as much?
We’re trying to play both games and we’re failing both
Internships have been used to obliterate the junior and entry level positions by forcing students and young people to take underpaid or unpaid jobs just to have the hope to enter some industries.
I understand the idea behind them and the theoretical benefit, but the reality is that they often become a disadvantage for the people that they are supposed to help.
I am an intern and earn 5€ an hour and after my roommate apartment shared with 3 other people I cannot afford even noodles 🙂
Meanwhile my megacorp which made only 72 million profit at my location out of 72 workers which are 9 interns cannot afford to pay us more than 5€ an hour.
Cannot afford to fix my escooter, cannot afford to get a driving license, cannot afford a car and cannot afford a warm meal once a week… overall amazing life and according to my HR Department I should be thankful for taking a chance at this amazing life of mine.
Literally right now bought some ramen noodles online in bulk to cook some meals when I am not completely done after 11h workday and 3h commutes.
Internship should be illegal and a felony.
We are no more in a small business economy where there is a “master of arts” like a carpenter o an architect\lawyer that need an “apprentice”.
We are in an economy where a CEO earns in a minute more than a worker in a lifetime. It is just wrong.
Louis Rossman summed it up best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyFoNLe5K9k internship is not free labor (if you see employer trying to abuse it, tell them to go f themselves), employee gets free training, know how, experience etc. an employer raises a potential future employee. Basically it’s free education (in many cases more valuable than university, because most of them don’t give any real world knowledge).
Laws like these will do one thing: end most actual internships as there is no incentive to not only give free education (which costs a lot in the first place (time of employees dedicated to a student, mishaps from an unexperienced student etc.) and hardly is worth the trouble.
I used to have interns, very few were worth the trouble at all (vast majority didn’t even know why they chose their career path or if they want to work in the field they chose) and had any motivation. And those few and take the knowledge and know how you provided (which helps them to start their careers) and start working for your competitor. I personally used to it because it gave opportunities to young people that I wish I had, but there were none. But it’s basically too much trouble, now I wouldn’t even do it if interns paid me, so paying for someone to share my own industry experience, workflows, best practices etc. (all the things that universities usually fail to teach) things that took me years working in the industry to acquire seems crazy.
Another aspect of unpaid internships is that it makes them a very unfair playing field for kids who don’t have money and need experience. Rich kids can go for unpaid internships because they don’t need the cash, so they can gain experience in their desired areas easily, where as poor kids will be stuck with other service jobs which don’t give them the desired experience. Which consequently makes it easier for rich kids to get better full time jobs too.
This is one of the strong reasons why you have people from rich backgrounds working in these companies, even if poor kids can get cheaper or free education these days.
This is a well meaning change that will likely end up reducing opportunities for internships in general.
As a general rule, interns do not provide much value to the company as their labor is unproductive and it requires someone in the company to devote additional time to instruct them. Intern work is usually of low quality, slow-going and they have no personal responsibility for the final product. All of that lies on the instructor to guide the intern and to quality control their output, and if necessary, redo everything from scratch if the intern can’t handle it. This is not atypical, this is expected as an intern is there to first and foremost learn as an apprentice and make mistakes they cannot afford to make later when they’re actually responsible for what they do.
UN found bankrupt in the ditch
yup I’ve done 4 internships already over the years and I’ve been paid by only one and even then the amount I was paid was laughable a whole €70 a month for 32 hours a week
In my country it has been illegal for many years already.
But multinationals ignore the law, and eager youngsters seems to not care.
The consequences for breaking the law are too lax.
Internships are just apprenticeships that don’t pay. They can die off and the faster the better.
In my country Austria we have a strong apprenticeship system and it’s actually working since several hundred years. Internships are a relative new thing for us, they just sprung up in the last 20-40 years and they are nothing more than slave labour.
FINALLY! I took them only 1000 years! 😂
Feel sad for UK tho. Lot’s of worker exploitation there.
16 comments
Fuck the rich corporations taking advantage of young people.
Let’s celebrate when this is actually a reality and common practice
All this is a bit unfair to these poor souls, how are they going to continue exploiting free labor now? /s
I already know that some people will say that this will reduce the number of internships and that in the end everything will be worse than before.
It might make sense to apply this rule on a sales volume or employee count requirement to not disproportionately “hurt” small companies
I support this (so much, having been in that position myself) but the EU can’t have both a capitalist system and a socialist one.
If you just make conditions more expensive for companies, they just go somewhere else (especially now that the remote work makes it easier for everyone). We need to start discussing a different system focused on sustainability, automation (the good kind that makes us work less, not the shitty one that just makes shareholders richer by firing people), and sharing wealth (for example UBI)
Otherwise, if we want to keep the capitalist system then we’re just not competitive anymore. Why would you hire a European with amazing benefits when you can just abuse an American to work twice as much?
We’re trying to play both games and we’re failing both
Internships have been used to obliterate the junior and entry level positions by forcing students and young people to take underpaid or unpaid jobs just to have the hope to enter some industries.
I understand the idea behind them and the theoretical benefit, but the reality is that they often become a disadvantage for the people that they are supposed to help.
I am an intern and earn 5€ an hour and after my roommate apartment shared with 3 other people I cannot afford even noodles 🙂
Meanwhile my megacorp which made only 72 million profit at my location out of 72 workers which are 9 interns cannot afford to pay us more than 5€ an hour.
Cannot afford to fix my escooter, cannot afford to get a driving license, cannot afford a car and cannot afford a warm meal once a week… overall amazing life and according to my HR Department I should be thankful for taking a chance at this amazing life of mine.
Literally right now bought some ramen noodles online in bulk to cook some meals when I am not completely done after 11h workday and 3h commutes.
Internship should be illegal and a felony.
We are no more in a small business economy where there is a “master of arts” like a carpenter o an architect\lawyer that need an “apprentice”.
We are in an economy where a CEO earns in a minute more than a worker in a lifetime. It is just wrong.
Louis Rossman summed it up best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyFoNLe5K9k internship is not free labor (if you see employer trying to abuse it, tell them to go f themselves), employee gets free training, know how, experience etc. an employer raises a potential future employee. Basically it’s free education (in many cases more valuable than university, because most of them don’t give any real world knowledge).
Laws like these will do one thing: end most actual internships as there is no incentive to not only give free education (which costs a lot in the first place (time of employees dedicated to a student, mishaps from an unexperienced student etc.) and hardly is worth the trouble.
I used to have interns, very few were worth the trouble at all (vast majority didn’t even know why they chose their career path or if they want to work in the field they chose) and had any motivation. And those few and take the knowledge and know how you provided (which helps them to start their careers) and start working for your competitor. I personally used to it because it gave opportunities to young people that I wish I had, but there were none. But it’s basically too much trouble, now I wouldn’t even do it if interns paid me, so paying for someone to share my own industry experience, workflows, best practices etc. (all the things that universities usually fail to teach) things that took me years working in the industry to acquire seems crazy.
Another aspect of unpaid internships is that it makes them a very unfair playing field for kids who don’t have money and need experience. Rich kids can go for unpaid internships because they don’t need the cash, so they can gain experience in their desired areas easily, where as poor kids will be stuck with other service jobs which don’t give them the desired experience. Which consequently makes it easier for rich kids to get better full time jobs too.
This is one of the strong reasons why you have people from rich backgrounds working in these companies, even if poor kids can get cheaper or free education these days.
This is a well meaning change that will likely end up reducing opportunities for internships in general.
As a general rule, interns do not provide much value to the company as their labor is unproductive and it requires someone in the company to devote additional time to instruct them. Intern work is usually of low quality, slow-going and they have no personal responsibility for the final product. All of that lies on the instructor to guide the intern and to quality control their output, and if necessary, redo everything from scratch if the intern can’t handle it. This is not atypical, this is expected as an intern is there to first and foremost learn as an apprentice and make mistakes they cannot afford to make later when they’re actually responsible for what they do.
UN found bankrupt in the ditch
yup I’ve done 4 internships already over the years and I’ve been paid by only one and even then the amount I was paid was laughable a whole €70 a month for 32 hours a week
In my country it has been illegal for many years already.
But multinationals ignore the law, and eager youngsters seems to not care.
The consequences for breaking the law are too lax.
Internships are just apprenticeships that don’t pay. They can die off and the faster the better.
In my country Austria we have a strong apprenticeship system and it’s actually working since several hundred years. Internships are a relative new thing for us, they just sprung up in the last 20-40 years and they are nothing more than slave labour.
FINALLY! I took them only 1000 years! 😂
Feel sad for UK tho. Lot’s of worker exploitation there.