Summations Only

I think you guys went to the wrong universities, then. My embedded systems design professor had years of experience at Motorola. Engineering especially is one of those fields where its important to study with people who have industry background. I guess I don't disagree, but I would question the value of an education that didn't prepare you, by commencement, to do significant and non-trivial work in that field. A civil engineering graduate should be able to design a bridge.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Yes, I was aware that they were clients of your engineering firm. Obviously. You seem to have completely misunderstood what I just said. That sounds like exactly the sort of highly technical work for which it was illegal to hire an unpaid intern for. Can you explain why you shouldn't have been paid for it?I mean, certainly one reason why people shouldn't work for free is when they would be part of a violation of the law by doing so. Why "albeit unpaid"?

In the UK it would be the National Minimum Wage (NMW) law, which guarantees a minimum wage for all workers. The latter two aren't reasons you shouldn't be paid, and the first confuses me - if you weren't qualified to do it, how did you do it? If you could do it, how weren't you qualified, and why should your work have been unpaid? Well, did you actually do work or just hang around the office? I mean, if what you're telling me happened is that they let you into the office so you could look around and see engineers at work, that's one thing. That's pretty valuable and that's worth doing. If you're telling me, though, that you produced useful labor product and weren't paid for it, then I think that's something people should avoid doing, in part because it's contributing to the commission of a crime. And like the Joker says, if you're good at something, don't do it for free. Why send the signal that your labor isn't worth anything?

Definitely worth doing. Never said it wasn't. Just don't let him put you to work, especially step-and-fetch work, unless it's on his dime. Since while you're stepping and fetching you're not going to have much chance to see him work.

Yes, exactly. The employer gains the value of your labor and you gain the value of your paycheck. Yes, exactly. The "work experience" we're talking about here is of the win-lose variety - your "employer" gains the value of your labor, and you lose the result of your labor and the time you spent on it. Because you lose much and gain little, that's why I don't recommend that people work for free. Fair cop. There's nothing to conflate. Qualified means "able", and the holding of qualifications is meant to demonstrate ability. But ability is the best and only actual qualification - if you can do it, you're qualified to do it. If you can't do it, holding the certs and licenses won't matter. But it's not win-win. It's win-lose. You lost the value of your labor, the time you spent, and the value of the paycheck you could have been making and what you got in return was not more than what you lost. It was, in fact, a lot less. It was better than nothing but you've confused "better than nothing" with "worth the price." By your lights if I gave you $5 in exchange for your $10, you'd call that "win-win" because I made $5 and you got more than nothing. But that's wrong. That's win-lose - I won $5 and you lost it.

Not under UK law, he wouldn't be (today):

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If an individual described as a volunteer was in fact a worker (see below), they would qualify for the NMW unless a specific exemption applied.
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Even if you do not have a contract of employment, you are a worker if you are doing work personally for someone else under a worker's contract, such as a contract to personally perform services, and are not genuinely self-employed.
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The term 'voluntary worker' has a specific meaning for NMW purposes.

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A voluntary worker is a type of worker (see above) who is exempt from qualifying for the NMW. Voluntary workers must work for a charity, voluntary organisation, associated fund raising body or statutory body. The benefits in kind and expenses they can receive are limited, and certain conditions must be met to ensure that the voluntary worker does not qualify for the NMW.

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So, as Straggler was not working for himself, had an implied contract ("do this work for that non-monetary renumeration"), and could not be classified as a "volunteer worker", he was subject to the NMW. Not having practical experience isn't an excuse not to pay someone. After all, you don't seem to think that their lack of practical experience prevents them from being able to do the job. Rather, you're taking advantage of their lack of experience to get their labor for free. Well, yes. The people working for you are Homo sapiens, not Homo economicus, that rare species who acts purely out of rational self-interest. Many people have fallen for the hype of "work for free", and like the elephant-repelling spray ("don't see any elephants around, do you?") connect their subsequent career success to their "unpaid internship" by committing the fallacy of ad hoc, ergo propter hoc. The result - now being investigated in the UK, and hopefully eventually in the US - is an enormous donation of free labor to employers like yourself who delude themselves into thinking they're doing the exploited a favor.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Yes, and like under US law, that exception is that the work has to be without value to the employer. That's to prevent the rest of that company's employees from suffering downward wage pressure in competition with people who will work for free. That's just it, though. There's no such thing as an "unpaid internship" where you produce useful work for free. If a company is getting real work out of you, under both US and UK law they're obligated to pay a wage. If they're just letting you mess around for training/educational purposes, that's ok. You can do that for free. (But it's an open question if you should, that might just be a waste of your time.) But if you're actually doing something useful for the company, it's illegal for them not to pay you.

What is the difference? I say "without value." The FLSA says "no immediate advantage." Synonymous. Not as he describes it, which is (to paraphrase) "I got experience and the company got useful work; it was win-win." It's the part where his work activities were of benefit to the company where they run afoul of the law.Internships are a way for companies to invest in the training of potential future employees. They're not a way to have work done for free, and any company so using interns is breaking the law both in the US and the UK. That's why so many unpaid interns are filing civil suits for back pay - and winning. Sure, but as we've seen in UK law, "volunteer" has a legal status that Straggler could not be said to have qualified for.

Because under UK law there's no such thing as a "volunteer" for a private, for-profit company that benefits from your work. There's no such status under the law. When we're talking about the people who work for companies that make profits, there's really only three possible statuses - paid employee, unpaid intern (whose work cannot benefit the company), and illegally unpaid employee. Right. And none of the "voluntary worker" exemptions apply. Ergo, Straggler was legally a worker who should have been paid. But they didn't not employ him. They employed him but didn't pay him. We're trying to determine if it was legal for them to do so, and under a plain reading of the guidelines, it was not. He did expert work for their benefit, ergo he was a worker. But he's not "practicing." He's working. He's producing labor that you benefit from, making it illegal for you not to pay.Look - where do you get this idea that you can be an employer, take people's useful labor, and not pay them any money for it? Where on Earth would you get the idea that it's ok to do something like that? What else do you think it's OK to steal? Better yet, asshole, why don't you cough up what you owe him for his work? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?

Sure, it's right here: Who need not get the National Minimum Wage. It should look familiar, it's your source.

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If you have a contract of employment then you are a worker. Even if you do not have a contract of employment, you are a worker if you are doing work personally for someone else under a worker's contract, such as a contract to personally perform services, and are not genuinely self-employed. For homeworkers, work or services may be performed personally or passed to family or friends without affecting qualification for the NMW. See the page in this guide that covers who must get the national minimum wage - workers, agency workers, agricultural workers, homeworkers.

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Since Straggler was not "genuinely self-employed" and was personally providing services under an implicit contract, he was a "worker" under the law. The only way he could not have earned the NMW is if he had been a "volunteer worker" and as you've agreed, he wasn't. Well, that's certainly a different situation than what you originally described. If you don't materially benefit from his work, that could be a legal unpaid internship. But that's not the situation Stragger has described.

I would choose a reform of the practice of internship so that you could have option D): Work, and get paid for it.Look, Straggler, I don't begrudge you your choice. You made a bad one, but maybe the best bad one. If your work was truly without value then nothing untoward happened. But if you produced useful work for the company, then you were taken advantage of.I don't know how else to describe it, or why it's such an amazingly contentious idea that when employers collude to force you to work for free, you've been taken advantage of. But that's what happened, as you've described it. Your best option was to be paid for the value of your labor. Either your labor was valueless or it was not, and if it was not, you should have been paid - under both UK and US law.

A contract exists any time that you have an offer, acceptance, and consideration - all of which Straggler has described. That's the implicit contract - he agreed to this in exchange for that. Yes, it does. You keep failing to quote the part where it does. How many times do I have to present evidence for you to ignore? I'm done doing it.

And if he'd asked "look, clearly my labor has value to you; why shouldn't I be paid", what would you have said to him? Then you have to pay him. That's how it works, to prevent people who really need the money from being out-competed by those who can afford to work for free as a temporary stepping-stone to something better.Why do you even think there is a minimum wage? Why do you think that we don't just let the "free market" decide what people should be paid? It's to prevent workers from lowballing each other in a race to the bottom. Well, what's a lower lowball than "will work for free"?Of course it should be illegal. Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why on Earth would you think it's ok to have someone work for nothing? Then you stole the value of his labor, didn't you? Yeah, I do. Why wouldn't I? Don't you think there's a certain conflict of interest? If your company can get labor for free, why wouldn't they? And why wouldn't your in-house lawyers, who are paid to represent the interests of the company, advise them that the practice of stealing labor was so widespread as to be legal?And the practice is widespread. Here in the US and in the UK. That doesn't mean that it is legal, or right, or a good idea for people to allow themselves to be exploited.

Your team of costly legal professionals (hey, how come they don't work for free - oops, I mean, for the "value of the experience"?) is primarily there to review legal documents. Think of stealing labor as a kind of side benefit. What? Getting labor for free is a million million million percent efficient, or more. It's infinity percent efficient because of the divide by zero. I wonder why you don't seem to think this rationale would apply to any other form of theft.

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There isn't any budget set aside for these groceries my family would like, but I'd like you to give them to me for free for your experience and your benefit.

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There isn't any budget set aside for this new flat-panel TV, but I'd like to arrange for it to be installed in my living room for free for your experience and your benefit.

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There isn't any budget set aside for this Ferrari, but I'd like to drive one off the lot for free for your experience and your benefit.

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There isn't any budget set aside for these allergy pills, but I'd like to shoplift them for your experience and your benefit.

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There isn't any budget set aside for your services, but I'd like you to provide them anyway for your experience and your benefit.

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I mean, these are all win-win, right? You gain the benefit of someone's labor for free, and they gain the benefit of providing you their labor for free! Gosh, when you put it like that, it's a wonder that anyone is so stupid as to demand compensation for their labor.

Only two factors are really relevant.1) Did you provide useful labor to the company?
2) Did you work for free?If both are true, then you were taken advantage of. That you weren't aware you were taken advantage of is irrelevant. That an enormous number of people who thought they were looking out for your best interests thought you weren't being taken advantage of is irrelevant. You're still comparing the benefits to doing nothing at all when I'm telling you that you should compare it to actual employment in your field, where you would get the exact same experience plus the compensation for the value of your labor you're entitled to under the law.And I've not heard even a single argument about why I'm wrong about that. Settled this in my first message. We have an effective work-experience scheme for the unemployed. It's called "employment". You know, where you perform labor for a company and they pay you a wage for it, as opposed to making you do it for free? Maybe you've heard of it. I understand things work a little differently at your company, where people are expected to toil without compensation for the "benefit" of toiling without compensation.