Considering how about the job market/economy is, particularly for college grads and considering that the word intern (at one time) meant working with little or not pay in exchange for experience, I think it's a little insulting (for lack of a better word) for you to post about the idea as if it's so radical or crazy.
But regarding this case (excerpt of the article):
Shipping thousand-dollar hats from New York City to London. Shuttling heavy bags around Manhattan. Skipping lunch. Working 55-hour weeks. And doing it all for free. "It was disgusting," says Diana Wang, 28, of her unpaid labor at Harper's Bazaar magazine. It was also potentially illegal.
Wouldn't you consider it as an abuse? Otherwise it would be acceptable, as you said.
I have done internships for free and pay. All of them I would have done for free.
I have done internships for free and pay. All of them I would have done for free.
I don't understand this. But I guess depending on what the job is I guess it could work out. For example, some training on the job that you couldn't get elsewhere, sure, but as a paper pusher or general desk work?... idunno. I've always seen internships as slave labor. I've been offered unpaid internships and have pretty much told them to go fuck themselves. When there are paid jobs out there and they're not guaranteeing you anything other than crappy training and no permanent position, what's the point? I'd be better off volunteering my free time at a homeless shelter or spending time looking for a paid job.
You paid someone else to go to school and work there, right? Not having to pay, and getting real world experience and contacts is a better deal.
Guess what? When she finishes the internship, she will have made contacts and also will have had an internship at a reputable magazine on her resume.
That's starting to change. In response to these lawsuits as well as to advocacy work by the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of Labor has ramped up efforts to educate unpaid interns about their rights. It has also encouraged them to speak out, as opposed to the norm of "keeping your mouth shut and being thankful for anything that comes your way," as Bickerton, who is suing PBS's The Charlie Rose Show, put it.
Meanwhile, some companies are pre-emptively improving their internship programs. Magazine publisher Condé Nast, for example, used to offer unpaid internships without work-hour limits. Now it pays a stipend of $550 per internship, pairs interns with a mentor and sends them home by 7 p.m. at the latest.