Maia Ferdman: Federal policy on internships lacking

Today it is a given that young people need hands-on experience or an internship under their belt to get a job.

A lagging economy has increased this necessity and lessened employers’ willingness to offer a salary in return.

However, as unpaid internships increase in number, federal oversight and protection of a growing unpaid labor force has not. To have competitive resumes, college students and graduates have no choice but to throw themselves into a murky and possibly exploitative unpaid labor market.

A discouraging ambiguity in our country’s internship labor laws has left a black hole for employers to fill at their discretion – leaving young job seekers feeling lucky with any internship they land.

Universities have been forced to step in and pick up the government’s slack, acting as virtually the only protectors of students who choose to pursue unpaid internships.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Labor specified six requirements for a legal, unpaid internship in the private sector.

For example, the experience should be “educational,” and purely for the “benefit” of the intern rather than the employer. The intern also cannot “displace” regular employees and is not guaranteed a full-time job once the internship is over.

These requisites are too vague to be truly effective.

For example, the term “educational” can be defined in an infinite number of ways, and the idea that interns’ work cannot “benefit” their employer could stop them from doing something potentially productive.

This one-size-fits-all approach simply does not suffice in a time when unpaid internships are the norm. The less specific these laws are, the less protection they offer.

In our own state, California labor law requires that employers couple unpaid internships with academic credit, according to the UCLA Center for Community Learning website. This is not so much government oversight as it is an easy way for California legislators to pass along the responsibility of quality assurance to universities.

If universities give internships the “OK” for academic credit, employers often assume that the internship is educational and follows the vague federal guidelines. But this may not necessarily be the case.

UCLA provides a good example of this new role adopted by universities as internship intermediaries.

The UCLA Career Center lists a range of internship options, many of which are unpaid, on the BruinView job listings site. Career Center staff evaluates every internship based on its job description and how well-established the company is, said Chris Howell, employer relations manager for international and experiential opportunities at the Career Center.

Additionally, for an employer to post an internship on BruinView, they must follow an extended list of Career Center guidelines that both complement and add to the federal guidelines. Howell said one of his goals for this year is to create a system of student feedback and review to make sure employers follow through on what they advertise.

Through the Center for Community Learning, UCLA students follow a structured course load to earn academic credit for their unpaid internships.

Students provide regular feedback and evaluations about the internship, and the Center for Community Learning, which employs three full-time staff members and many graduate students, regularly checks in with students to make sure that these experiences are academic and valuable, according to Kathy O’Byrne, director of the Center for Community Learning.

While universities should be commended for acting as a student guardian, primary enforcement of labor laws should not be their burden.

To help standardize the quality of internships, the federal government should adopt a plan similar to the one on the table at the UCLA Career Center and the one in place at the Center for Community Learning. A national internship database could be created that would receive public input and feedback. Should a problem or suspicious internship arise, interns could alert the federal government, who in turn would step in.

This database would create a system of accountability among employers and would help solidify internship requirements.

In an era when unpaid internships are ubiquitous and necessary, the federal government should keep up with the times and protect an important section of its labor force.