All Work and No Pay: Establishing the Standard for When Legal, Unpaid Internships Become Illegal, Unpaid Labor

Abstract

During the early twentieth century, working conditions in the United States were rough. Employees worked long hours under dangerous conditions and received very little pay. People used the term sweating to describe these difficult working conditions. Sweating is defined as “the unfair exploitation by unscrupulous employers of the necessities of the poorer and more helpless class of workers by requiring them to work for wages inadequate to their needs or for excessive hours or under insanitary conditions.” Today, while working conditions have improved for most, the term sweating could still be used to describe conditions for a certain type of worker—unpaid interns. Abusive labor practices may not be as widespread or as visible as they were in the early twentieth century, but they are still a prevailing problem in the current intern labor market. Illegal unpaid internships subject a countless number of workers to “unfair exploitation by unscrupulous employers.” The intern market is massive and so is the potential for abuse. In the United States, it is estimated there are between 1 to 2 million interns and as many as 50 percent of these interns