Donna Karan International Inc., the popular designer of women’s fashion, was hit with a putative class action in New York state court on Wednesday for allegedly classifying regular employees as interns and trainees to avoid paying them.
Newsday Column: Unpaid Internships & Social Mobility
August 15, 2013 By
Anne Michaud of Newsday, explored some of the underpinnings of unpaid 
internships and social mobility in her column on August 23, 2013, entitled “Internships and the American Dream” .
“Opportunities like these should be open to people up and down the socioeconomic ladder, achieved mainly by smarts and diligence. And that’s the problem with unpaid internships. They reinforce the declining social mobility in America.”
One of the principal arguments against unpaid internships is the requirement that you be well-suited enough to afford living on no wages for several weeks or months while you pursue those internships. If you can afford to borrow from your family or live at home, that’s fantastic. But many Americans cannot afford to work for free, pay rent and afford food. That denies a large portion of the population the ability to gain experience and move up the corporate ladder — because they cannot afford to take unpaid internships. Ms. Michaud flushes out part of that argument in her piece.
Ms. Michaud concludes: “Interns, by definition, are in a fragile position — trying to get a foothold in an occupation, aiming to please. It’s a shame to exploit that eagerness by paying them nothing.”
Watch Group: Unpaid Internships Cost Jobs and Cause Image Problems
August 15, 2013 By
According to a watch group that focuses on internship, getting a job with unpaid internship experience equates to a 1% greater chance of obtaining a job, compared with no internship experience at all.
In a statement released last week, InternMatch stated: “The millions of unpaid internships in the U.S. every year are costing hundreds of thousands of jobs. While paid internships turn into a job 60 percent of the time, unpaid internship experience offers a measly 1 percent bump over no internship experience at all (37 percent vs. 36 percent). This should sound an alarm for everyone defending the ‘pay your dues and you’ll be better off long-term’ argument.”
According to the data the group has collected, paid internships draw more attention from prospective talent and are far more likely to lead to paid positions. The use of unpaid internships also has a negative association, according to the group.
“Providing interns with an unpaid, under-educational experience can ruin your image as an employer of interns and full-time employees, while creating a paid intern program is good business. It helps to find more talented students (paid positions get 2.7 times as many applications as unpaid roles), helps increase conversion of interns to full-time hires, and creates more buy-in from students during their internship.”
The group concludes, “By not paying interns and allowing students to ‘pay their dues,’ businesses are actually setting themselves up for serious legal troubles.