Cindy Morgan-Jaffe a.k.a – The Intern Lady – today interviewed Matthew Zinman on her 30-minute online talk show “InternBuzz” about the topic of unpaid internships and the recently launched advocacy site: PayInterns.com.

The interview may be accessed at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/internlady/2010/07/02/intern-buzz

The lively dialogue covered a wide range of related issues addressed by The Intern Bill of Rights and Proposed Reforms published on the site. As detailed as the interview was, it will likely have a Part 2 sometime in the coming weeks.

Stay Tuned!

Many people think that unpaid internships are a good thing.  That’s to be expected with any cultural norm, as was once slavery, women’s suffrage and black segregation. Internships are indeed an American institution, rooted not just in decades of evolution, among which exists a culture of free labor, but also in centuries of Apprenticeship and its role as a foundation for individual prosperity and our collective economic vitality.

In a perfect world – at the micro-economic level – [unpaid] internships can be a very good thing. But they are not all created equal.  However, in the big picture, – at the macroeconomic level – they become extremely detrimental.How?

“The Case for Intern Compensation” directly correlates with a number of interrelated issues including – but not limited to – college affordability and accessibility; graduate conversion rates and matriculation duration; equal opportunity employment and social stratification; the reduced accessibility to adequate student loans and the related immediate and long-term debt burden; and abusive practices by businesses to leverage free labor as an alternative to what might otherwise be paid job opportunities for unemployed workers. So this issue impacts a much greater “Internship Eco-System” and diminishes our ability to harness the full power of internships to fulfill the promise of American Youth to revitalize our economy and America’s global competitiveness.

We address all of these issues and more in our Intern Bill of Rights and Proposed Reforms, published at PayInterns.com Whether here or there, I’d love to hear what you think!

I wholeheartedly invite you to PayInterns.com. Exercise your First Amendment rights. Endorse the “Petition to Abolish Unpaid Internships.”  Lending your voice will help to ratify our “Intern Bill of Rights and Proposed Reforms.”

The goal is to gather at least 100,000 signatures by July 4, and declare Intern Independence.  Our success can be greatly enhanced if you spread the word among those in your social network.

Together we can make our pen mightier to remedy injustice.

POST-SCRIPT: At first blush, one might assume that abolition would be counter-intuitive to fostering opportunity for students and employers. To the contrary, our Proposed Reforms take a sensible, phased approach to actualize societal and systemic change with an emphasis on stimulating opportunity, not stifling it.

While we abhor unpaid internships, we must acknowledge the necessity to balance our call for universal pay with the achieveability of that goal.  This injustice cannot fully be rectified overnight, especially in light of our current economic climate. But that should not delay the initiation and progress of meaningful reform, which will take considerable time.

The decision is in: no thanks to the Department of Labor’s recent crackdown on unpaid internships, The Obama Administration has – in effect – turned its back on our nation’s Youth, Student Labor Market and the Small Business community seeking a new generation of entry-level talent.

In our conversations across the country two relevant concerns have emerged about the future of internships and the future of student employment in America – and neither report from the field bode well. First, the U.S. DOL has effectively told youth and students – the very core of the Obama “change” movement that got him elected – that internships are effectively over. In its over-zealousness to “regulate” the corporate use of youth and students, President Obama’s Labor Department is diminishing the very purpose and value internships provide.

Second, as our economy still works through major transformations – and according to highly regarded economists the Nation’s recovery is still not out of the woods yet – youth and students in America face the bleakest job future since the 1970s.

Unless internships are revitalized and even embraced by the Obama Administration – America could easily resemble Germany and France in 5-10 years with millions of unemployed youth – buried in debt with limited earnings potential to ever recover and with good reason to be increasingly anxious about their futures.

To recap, the DOL’s recently reasserted an antiquated system of compensation exemption that is guided by a 63 year-old “Six-Pronged Test.” These guidelines are counterintuitive to making internships beneficial for students and employers alike. As such, the DOL has essentially said that any for-profit company with an unpaid internship of any real mutual value is probably breaking the law.

Relying on obsolescence to address the urgent needs of modern times is short-sighted, grossly irresponsible and flat-out reckless. These guidelines decimate the shared value proposition and benefits to all parties. What the DOL describes as ‘productive work’ is laughable and relegates internships to job shadowing, which nearly eliminates an employer’s motivation to provide such opportunities in the first place. If an employer isn’t gaining an advantage, chances are, the student is doing less productive work tasks, which is typically why they are willing to forego pay as well as for the opportunity to ‘earn’ a job, which – by the way – the DOL also says is unacceptable.

The Internship Institute – in communicating with over 4,000 individuals across the Nation – as well as employers from small entrepreneurial firms to major global corporations – has learned that unless and until there is appropriate planning and support around internships for youth and students to gain “real-world” experience as scientists, engineers, researchers, creative talent, and innovators – then the very Presidential Administration that promoted “change” has effectively closed the door to its own powerful constituency for that change.

Direct feedback from an internship program manager at a major market radio station – who asked not to be identified – reported that, “My new General Manager stepped in and asked me if interns were performing some entry level work … and I said, ‘yes!’  He asked me if the station was deriving some ‘immediate benefit’ from it … and I said ‘yes.’  He then barked at me about the ‘letter of the law’ in terms the U.S. Labor Department’s 1947 definition.  He said, ‘From now on, interns will only shadow our employees.  They are to ask questions [slowing down company productivity], but nothing more.’ I then told him, that was it.  Our radio station college internship program was now officially over.”

Indeed college students are even more adamant about the restrictions. Simply summarized by one, “What’s the point of working for free to get experience if all I get to do is watch? I may as well tap the online [career] sites to get the same benefit and flip burgers to make an extra buck. I have college loans to pay off.”

So here again it’s evident that some bureaucrat sitting in a cubicle in Washington DC decided to throw the baby and the bath-water out while not understanding the unintended consequences to America’s youth and students. They essentially lit the fire, pulled the alarm, slipped out the back door and left it for everyone else to extinguish.

So what should employers do now? The Internship Institute has issued a Compliance Advisory to recommend that employers focus on additional training as a prudent measure to satisfy the DOL along with a solution to build that talent equity. Whether paid or unpaid, employers have an obligation to train interns, states the Advisory. In spite of any short-sightedness and inadequacy by the DOL, TII firmly advocates that the experience should be mutually advantageous.

As for the letter of the law, the indicators are clear enough. If President Obama allows the Department of Labor’s position to remain unchallenged and unchanged – then purposeful internships in America will be terminated, finished, cooked.