Unpaid interns - the slaves of the 21st century

Today's world is so confused that sometimes we don't even notice the crazy things we do to open the doors in front of us. Young people are especially affected by this "confusion." Today, you have to juggle between going to school full time, working full-time, having a personal life (or a pity resemblance of me), and somehow to find 10 to 15 more hours a week for an unpaid internship. The crooked systems we live in make robots out of us, but the unpaid internships turn us into slaves.

In this tough economy, the chances of finding a job are dim, but there are plenty of unpaid internships. We all know why because companies want to use the free labor of the young, and eager to launch a career, graduates and soon to graduate students. If you look on Craigslist.com almost every company advertises for unpaid internships. If these companies are growing and doing well, they wouldn't be constantly looking for unpaid interns, which is what prompt them to do so.

So, companies offer unpaid internships and kids accept them, because they need the experience. Not every kid however, can afford to spend the whole summer at an unpaid position. Hence, the unfairness. Only the ones that are in easy circumstances can do it. Yet, many of us, full-timers handle an internship as well. This way though, with thousands of students interning, becomes even harder for the graduates to find a job. Firms use the free labor of students, instead of giving a chance to the once already out of school. All this turn it into a highly controversial issue.

With the growth of unpaid internships though, the federal government worries that companies are illegally using interns for free labor while, ironically, the government itself hires thousands of unpaid internships. State regulators' concerns push them to conduct investigations and fine companies. One reason is that students do work that they are not supposed to do. Many students, instead of learning something valuable for their future career, do administrative tasks, buy coffee and take out the trash.

According to the Labor Department, some very important criteria that firms need to observe when hiring unpaid internships are that the interns can't perform tasks usually done by regular employees and the employer can't receive "immediate advantage" of the interns' work. The benefits have to be only for the interns and they need to be supervised.

Many students agree that unpaid internships take advantage of students, but they are afraid to complain because this can hurt their future career.

There is no doubt that a student needs an internship, but why not have such through the school? Make it like a class where students go spend time at different companies and then discuss what they have learned. This is how it is in many countries around the world. In my country, Bulgaria, for most majors you have practice, or internship, as a part of your requirement. The school, in connection with the public and the private sector provides students with the actual training. So, you are paying for the credits, but you are secured, the internship is part of the last year's requirements.

Here, on the other hand, we ourselves have to look for an internship, which is unpaid in most cases and it is minimum three months, and we have to pay for the credits as well. It is true that students are working and receiving experience, but nobody can deny that the interns are not supervised all the time and they do unrelated work to their specialty.

So today, with the scarcity of jobs the number of unpaid internships has climbed. Companies can hire unpaid internships year-round, following some government criteria, which in most cases we know are not observed. This is unfair to those who can't afford to spend a summer working for free, and to those who have graduated and are trying to start their career. How much worse could it be? Free labor has always been associated with slavery. Today, working for free is unheard of, especially in capitalist America. Ironically, it looks like that is what capitalists are looking for now.