Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Said the report, “Unpaid interns miss out on wages and employment benefits, but they can also find themselves in ‘legal limbo’ when it comes to civil rights, according to law professor and intern labor rights advocate David Yamada. The O’Connor decision (the leading ruling on the matter, according to Yamada) held that because they don’t get a paycheck, unpaid interns are not ’employees’ under the Civil Rights Act—and thus, they’re not protected. Federal policies echo court rulings.”
ProPublica issued another report this week. It hits very close to home. The headline: “Northwestern’s Journalism Program Offers Students Internships with Prestige, But No Paycheck.”
ProPublica reports that “Gawker Media, Condé Nast, NBCUniversal, Inc. and News Corp. are all facing lawsuits from former interns who say they should have been paid minimum wage.” And yet, “as newsrooms revisit internships, it’s clear that for some, even minimum wage can strain the budget. Newspaper staffs have shrunk by 30 percent since 2000.”
