CHICAGO—Among various policies that former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has touted as proving he fought for the common man was a 2006 bill that raised the state minimum wage automatically each year through 2010. Several days after Blagojevich was convicted on 17 federal corruption charges, minimum wage workers in Illinois began July 1 without any increase in minimum wages for the first time in five years.

The state minimum wage currently stands at $8.25 ($7.75 for minors and people in the first 90 days with an employer) and $4.95 an hour for tipped employees. (Restaurant workers are calling for a higher federal minimum wage for tipped employees, as I blogged about last week.)

In Chicago, the state minimum wage is still several dollars below what is considered a living wage. At a press conference in Chicago Thursday, labor leaders, workers, pastors and business owners who are part of a coalition called Raise Illinois called to increase the state minimum wage to make up for de facto decreases in the minimum wage since it has failed to keep pace with the cost of living.

Though Illinois has one of the country’s highest state minimum wages, it is still significantly lower than what the minimum wage would be if the first Illinois minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in 1969 had been increased proportionate to the cost of living. Had the minimum kept pace with inflation, it would be above $10 an hour by now, according to the coalition. Increasing the state minimum wage to at least that level is the goal of a Senate bill the coalition is supporting.

In recent months, California, Massachusetts, Maine and Marylandlegislatures introduced bills to increase their state minimum wages.

Adam  Kader, director of the workers center for the group ARISE Chicago(and an occasional contributor to this website), noted that much projected job growth in this economy is in minimum wage jobs or jobs that pay just slightly above minimum wage, including in fast food restaurants, big box retail stores, warehouses, cleaning and maintenance and other low-skill service sectors.

“It’s not just young people, people working over the summer or part-time workers who earn minimum wage,” he said. “More and more new jobs are in the minimum wage bracket.”

An increase in the minimum wage also affects a significant tier of workers who earn one step above minimum wage, Kader notes, since many employers peg their wages to the minimum wage, promising to pay 25 cents or 50 cents above it. That is the case, for example, with a new Walmartplanned for Chicago’s South Side Pullman neighborhood.

The Chicago event also featured the groups Action Now and Women Employed, SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, homecare and other workers and interfaith leaders. The coalition’s website says:

At $8.25 an hour, or $16,500 a year, minimum wage workers cannot afford to provide for their families’ basic needs. In this recession, corporate profits and CEO pay are increasing dramatically, while ordinary working Americans are struggling to survive.

The Illinois legislature has been helpful to big businesses by providing workers compensation reform, which reduced costs for businesses, and the Governor offered tax subsidies to huge corporations like Motorola and Sears.

Unfortunately, Illinois elected officials have forgotten about working Americans, especially minimum wage workers who received a reduction in real wages this year.

A fact sheet from the Raise Illinois coalition says:

A raise in the minimum wage helps low-income households who immediately put the money back into the economy at the local grocery store, barber shop or gas station. The Economic Policy Institute estimated that the 2009 federal minimum wage increase from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour would generate $5.5 billion in new consumer spending. A robust minimum wage can help build a sustainable economic recovery– without increasing costs to taxpayers.

On June 7, the Center for American Progress hosted a panel of experts describing how a higher minimum wage should be expected to stimulate the economy, even during an economic crisis.

When Illinois’ 2006 minimum wage bill was passed, a press release from Blagojevich’s office touted the achievement.

Despite predictions from opponents of the minimum wage that its increase would harm the economy, since the Governor’s first minimum wage hike went into effect in January 2004, Illinois has added more than 152,000 new jobs, which is more than any state in the Midwest according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Illinois has led the nation in job growth twice this year (April and July), which has never happened before in recorded history, and has been named the third best state in the nation for attracting new and expanded corporate facilities by Site Selection Magazine.

Inc. Magazine recently named Gov. Blagojevich as the second best Governor in the nation for fiscal policy (Blagojevich was also named the top governor for health care policy). In addition, the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.7 percent in January 2003, when the fight for the higher minimum wage began, to 4.1 percent today, which is the state’s lowest level on record.

While the praise for the former governor now seems humorous, the economic impact of his actions on the state minimum wage are no less relevant today.

This article originally appeared on the Working In These Times blog on July 1, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Kari Lydersen is an In These Times contributing editor, is a Chicago-based journalist whose works has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Reader and The Progressive, among other publications. Her most recent book is Revolt on Goose Island. In 2011, she was awarded a Studs Terkel Community Media Award for her work. She can be reached at kari.lydersen@gmail.com.

Exactly four years ago, hardworking folks across the country finally got a pay raise ten years in the making.

One of the first laws I helped pass, just a couple of months after joining the Senate, was the Fair Minimum Wage Act. And it became law four years ago today.

Passing that law was a promise I’d made to Montanans. I’m proud that it was a promise kept.

On the same ballot where my name appeared in 2006, Montanans overwhelmingly passed a measure raising our state’s minimum wage. I endorsed the effort and it earned the support of 73 percent of Montanans.

Montanans sent a clear message with that vote–that we understand the value of workplace protections like the minimum wage.

Because by 2006, years of failed federal economic policies by politicians in Congress had led to Montana coming in 50th (dead last) for wages in the entire country.

Montanans understand the minimum wage is an American value. And it’s a value I took with me to the Senate, where I fight for our working families every day.

I fought to pass the Fair Minimum Wage Act–which raised the minimum wage after the longest gap between increases in history–for the same reasons I’ve fought for more jobs, better access to veterans’ care and lower taxes for working families. And it’s why I fought to put health care decisions in the hands of patients instead of insurance companies.

For the same reasons, I fought for other workplace protections like the Lillie Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to prevent discrimination against women.

I’ve fought for these changes because I’m a third generation family farmer and small business owner and I know firsthand the challenges that working Montana families face.

They deserve leaders who work for them.

Other members of Congress have had different priorities over the years. But I personally believe public service is not about looking out for your own career or your own paycheck. Public service should be about building a better future for our kids and grandkids.

On this anniversary, let’s redouble our efforts to strengthen the middle class, in Montana and across the country.

Because a lot of politicians who’ve stood in the way of progress for our working families have no idea what it’s like to earn a minimum wage.

Maybe if they did, we’d see how quickly they start changing their tune.

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post on May 25, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Senator Jon Tester is a third generation family farmer from Big Sandy, Montana.  He farms the same land his grandparents homesteaded nearly 100 years ago.  During his first Senate term, he has earned a reputation as a champion for rural veterans, a pioneer in government transparency and a powerful voice for rural America.

San Francisco workers yesterday kicked off a new citywide campaign to combat wage theft and rallied to mobilize support for a proposed new anti-wage theft law.

Wage theft is a $30 billion a year problem nationally and in the Bay Area, workers in the restaurant, construction, caregiving, manufacturing industries are victims. Tiffany Crain, from the activist group Young Workers United (YWU), says:

It comes in the form of not being paid overtime, not receiving breaks, not being paid at all in some instances, and many other things that are unlawful, work off the clock, they’re told to clock out and told to do other duties and not paid for it.

In 2010, a report released by the Chinese Progressive Association revealed that 1 out of 2 workers in Chinatown restaurants are paid below the minimum wage.  In 2010, the Progressive Workers Alliance helped Bay Area workers recover nearly $500,000 in stolen wages due to wage theft through legal claims, lawsuits, employer negotiations and community campaigns.

The proposed ordinance by city supervisors David Campos and Eric Mar would strengthen requirements that employers post notices and inform workers about the minimum wage and other workers’ rights related to wages and also increase penalties for employers who violate the law.

Crain says the proposed ordinance would benefit employers as well as workers because wage theft “is unfair competition for responsible businesses, and we will work to help promote these good businesses.”

Last week, the group issued their second annual edition of “Dining With Justice,” which highlights food establishments that follow labor laws and treat their employees with dignity and respect.

This blog originally appeared in AFL-CIO on May 13, 2011. Reprinted with Permission.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When his collar was still blue, he carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He has also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold his blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent.

Most workers have seen notices about their right to a minimum wage or safe workplace posted in the company break room or elsewhere on the job. Employers are required to post those notices by federal law.

But there is no requirement for employers to post any sort of notice about workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the right to form a union. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is proposing a rule that would require employers to post such notices in the workplace.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the proposed rule is “a common sense policy needed in today’s workplace.”

Every working person in America deserves to know his or her rights… [The rule]…ensures that workers’ rights are effectively communicated in the workplace. It is necessary in the face of widespread misunderstanding about the law and many workers’ justified fear of exercising their rights under it.

According to the proposed rule, published in the Federal Register, the NLRB believes that

many employees protected by the NLRA are unaware of their rights under the statute. The intended effects of this action are to increase knowledge of the NLRA among employees, to better enable the exercise of rights under the statute, and to promote statutory compliance by employers and unions.

Federal contractors must post such notices and the new proposed rule mirrors that requirement. The NLRB says notices would inform workers that they have

the right to act together to improve wages and working conditions, to form, join and assist a union, to bargain collectively with their employer, and to choose not to do any of these activities. It provides examples of unlawful employer and union conduct and instructs employees how to contact the NLRB with questions or complaints.

Says Trumka:

When workers know their rights, they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

Click here for the proposed rule and here for a fact sheet and more information about the proposed rule from the NLRB.

This article was originally posted on AFL-CIO Now Blog.

About The Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety.

Should we tear down the city’s middle class? Or work to turn lousy jobs into good ones? That’s the policy choice facing New York’s city and state leaders. So far, their decisions aren’t encouraging: for years New York has failed to use its economic development programs to promote the creation of good, family-supporting jobs. Now it is welcoming Walmart’s industry-decimating low-wages with open arms. The state has so far failed to take a stand against $1 billion a year in wages stolen from New York’s lowest-income workers, but instead is spoiling for a fight of a very different sort: vowing to scale back the pay and retirement security of middle-class teachers, transportation workers, and other public employees.

The result? A disappearing middle class amidst the proliferation of lousy, low-wage jobs. It doesn’t have to be this way.

For the time being, New York City is getting more lousy jobs. We are gaining retail and restaurant jobs — positions that often lack benefits and fail to pay a living wage – while losing middle-class jobs in the public sector and manufacturing. To make matters worse, education and health care – among the few bright spots in New York City’s recovery over the past year (as well as the state’s job growth over the past decade) — are the very areas Governor-elect Cuomo has vowed to cut.

As a result, the disappearance of New York’s middle class is likely to accelerate. We may continue to be home to more millionaires but we’re also apt to see more people with jobs showing up at food pantries because they’re not earning enough to feed their families.

None of this is inevitable. The economic trends impacting New York today were heavily shaped by past public policy decisions at the federal, state, and local level. Meanwhile the choices made by our political leaders today could redirect (or intensify) the way the city’s economy develops. What will New York stand for?

If we’re stung by the loss of good jobs, one reaction is to turn our resentment on the folks who still have solid middle-class careers: deplore teachers who still have protection from arbitrary layoffs and insist that the biggest problem New York faces is that parks department workers still have pensions. We could assert the worker protections they enjoy are outdated, trash the compensation these public workers earn, and turn their jobs into lousy jobs too.

While we’re at it, we can welcome Walmart into the city and insist that it’s perfectly acceptable for people to go to work every day and still need food stamps to feed their children. Maybe the teachers we’re laying off can get jobs there.

Or we could try something different.

We could, for example, to look at the hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development subsidies the city spends every year and insist that these taxpayer dollars be used to promote jobs that allow working people to support their families. New York could emulate Pittsburgh’s decision to stop using subsidies to foster poverty wages. We could pass the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act to insist that the mega-developments underwritten by our public dollars pay decent wages. These measures won’t put an immediate halt to the decline of job quality in New York, but at least they’ll put the city’s economic muscle on the side of the angels.

We could also work to ensure that the job standards we have now are enforced. New York’s minimum wage is an inadequate $7.25 an hour, yet a fifth of the city’s low-wage workforce (317,200 working people) are cheated out of even that meager pay or fall victim to other workplace violations in a typical week. The state’s Wage Theft Prevention Act, now languishing in Albany because the Assembly and Senate passed slightly different versions, would be a step towards enforcing the laws now on the books to protect New York’s lowest paid workers.

It’s not too late for New York to take a stand for good jobs, strengthening and expanding the city’s middle class rather than tearing it down. But the longer New York waits to reverse course, the more difficult it will be.

This article was originally posted on DMI Blog.

About the Author: Amy Traub is the Director of Research at the Drum Major Institute. A native of the Cleveland area, Amy is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. Before coming to the Drum Major Institute, Amy headed the research department of a major New York City labor union, where her efforts contributed to the resolution of strikes and successful union organizing campaigns by hundreds of working New Yorkers.

The United States is a country where hard work is supposed to be rewarded. If you agree with that, would you be shocked to learn that there are more than 1.6 million homecare workers who are being denied federal minimum wage and overtime protections under current labor laws? And it is almost 2011!

Chew on this for a minute: More than 1 million hardworking Americans are legally denied basic labor rights most of us take for granted at this point. How did that happen, what can we do to change that?

It all goes back to The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which was enacted in 1938 to ensure a minimum standard of living for workers through the provision of minimum wage, overtime pay, and other protections – yet, domestic workers were excluded.

In 1974 the FLSA was amended to include domestic workers, such as housekeepers, full-time nannies, chauffeurs, and cleaners. However, people who were described as “companions to the elderly or infirm” were for some reason excluded from the law. They were compared to babysitters…

I love asking the question: If your elderly family member needed homecare to change herself, use the bathroom, get lifted from the chair to the sofa, and then have her meds dispensed at specific times; would you call the babysitter you call for date night with your spouse? Of course you wouldn’t, so why does the government consider these hardworking homecare providers babysitters? Yeah, I don’t know either.

In 2001 the Clinton Department of Labor finds that “significant changes in the home care industry” have occurred and issued a “notice of proposed rulemaking” that would have made important changes to this bizarre exemption. So, that was good news, right?

It was good news until W came to town. The Bush Administration terminated the revision process shortly after taking office. Thanks, W!

Then comes 2007: the US Supreme Court, in a case brought by New York home care attendant Evelyn Coke, upheld the DOL’s authority to define this exception to the FLSA. In short, that means that this crazy archaic law can be reversed beginning with the DOL, today.

Before we get you to take action on this situation, please keep in mind that these million-plus workers are currently living at near poverty level earning a median income of $17,000 a year. Most of these workers, who both love their work and are good at their work, must have two and three jobs to just make ends meet. With this scenario in play, these workers are quick to burn out or leave their trade entirely. This ultimately comes back to the consumer who often finds it difficult to hire and retain high quality home care services.

This article was originally posted on SEIU”s Blog.

About the Author: Richard Negri is the founder of UnionReview.com and is the Online Manager for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Talk to a working New Yorker, and the odds are one in four that she belongs to a union. That’s a rate of union membership more than twice as high as the country as a whole, note CUNY professor Ruth Milkman and graduate student Laura Braslow in their new study, “The State of the Unions: A Profile of 2009-2010 Union Membership in New York City, New York State, and the USA.” Their research provides a rich analysis of data on union demographics and industry composition in the city, state, and country, and suggests some hidden strengths and challenges of New York’s economy.

New York City is home to 800,000 union members, with particular union density in the public sector and the health care and social assistance industries. By and large, these union jobs continue to be good jobs: the CUNY analysis finds that union members in New York City earn more than non-union workers, while national statistics suggest that they are also more likely to earn middle-class health and retirement benefits.

Unionized positions represent a particularly important source of good jobs for people of color: African-American New Yorkers (37% unionized) and city residents born in Puerto Rico (41% unionized) are among the most likely to be union members. National data also indicate that people of color see especially strong benefits from collective bargaining, suggesting how important unions are to sustaining New York City’s African American and Latino middle class. Women also get a big boost in job quality as a result of union membership – it turns out that working women in New York are as likely to be union members as men.

What the statistics don’t capture is the way that high union density also improves job standards for workers are not union members, as when the city’s large non-union hotels pay wages far above the national standard because New York’s hotel union has effectively set a higher industry-wide rate. New York’s unions have also helped to advance a political agenda that benefits workers far outside their membership: consider the pivotal role New York unions played in the successful fight to increase the state’s minimum wage in 2004, or the efforts unions are making today to guarantee paid sick time to all working people in New York City.

Lawmakers Go After Employers Who Misclassify Workers as Contractors

Nearly three years ago, Warren, Ohio, Local 573 Business Manager Mark Catello found out the hard way how rampant is the illegal practice of misclassifying workers as independent contractors to circumvent labor law and cheat on taxes.

The local tried organizing cable workers at Baker Communications, a subcontractor for Time Warner Cable. Organizers got the majority of the 40-person unit to sign union authorization cards, but the National Labor Relations Board killed the unionization drive after agreeing with the company that most of its employees were independent contractors, making them exempt from the right to collectively bargain. “It’s a scam,” Catello said. “All the employees had to follow the company’s manual, wear the company’s uniform with the Baker Communications logo on it and follow their work schedule.”

San Francisco labor activists protest a construction contractor found guilty of cheating its employees out of wages and benefits.

Federal and state officials are now starting to aggressively crack down on employers who mislabel their employees as independent contractors—an act that cheats both taxpayers and workers out of billions of dollars.

According to Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times, more than two dozen states are stepping up their enforcement of employment laws by increasing penalties for employers who misclassify workers as contractors. And Congress recently introduced tougher legislation to punish lawbreakers.

‘Widespread Practice’

The practice is extensive, says James Parrott, chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York. He testified earlier this year before the state Senate that an estimated 10 percent of the state’s workers are misclassified as independent contractors.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number has been estimated to be as high as 30 percent in some states. Lax enforcement of the rules has only encouraged the practice.

In 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported that 10 million workers were classified as independent contractors, an increase of more than 2 million in just six years.

Misclassification ends up costing federal and state authorities billions in lost revenue. Companies that report employees as independent contractors avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes.

But misclassifying workers also cheats workers out of their rights and benefits. Laws regarding overtime, workers’ compensation, sick days and minimum wage don’t apply to independent contractors.

“This denies many workers their basic rights and protections and means less revenues to the Treasury and competitive advantage for employers who misclassify,” Jared Bernstein told the New York Times. Bernstein is a noted economist and aide to Vice President Joseph Biden. “The last thing you want is to give a competitive advantage to employers who are breaking the rules.”

The practice is particularly common in trucking and some sectors of the construction industry. It is also found in the telecommunications industry, particularly in satellite dish and cable installation.

And it’s not just fly-by-night operations that are guilty. Corporate giants FedEx, Target and Comcast have all been sued for misclassifying workers.

Counting their workers as contractors has also proven to be an easy way for employers to prevent unionization.

‘Keeps Them From Joining a Union’

For Eighth District Organizer Bob Brock, a crackdown on industry violators is long overdue.

Brock has been trying to organize workers who install home satellite dishes for more than a year. Many of these workers—located mostly in Idaho, Montana and Colorado—endure long hours, low pay, draconian work rules and unsafe working conditions. But according to their employers—including Direct TV and Star West Satellite—they are their own bosses.

“Most of these (satellite) companies operate a whole separate wing, which they staff with what they call independent contractors,” Brock said. “But they have to follow the companies’ regulations, their work hours and use their equipment. What kind of boss is that?”

Brock says that the IBEW has been successful in getting many of these workers to talk with organizers, but until their job status is changed, they can’t legally form a union.

He says he has seen workplaces where two different workers are doing the exact same job, but one is labeled an employee while the other is an independent contractor. “It’s a selective way for the company to get out of paying benefits and taxes and to keep them from joining a union.”

Educating Workers on Their Rights

But the IBEW hasn’t given up on organizing the satellite sector. The Eighth District has started an organization—Satellite Techs Allied for a New Direction—which brings together satellite workers to improve their working conditions. Organizers help workers document what’s going on in their workplace so they have evidence to back up their claims that they are full-time employees.

STAND also helps misclassified workers with tax advice and how to avoid being preyed on by unscrupulous insurance agents who try to sell them overpriced liability policies. It’s a long-term strategy, Brock says, but the campaign is starting to pick up steam. “The word is spreading throughout the industry. A lot of them don’t know about their rights and they are hungry to find out.”

The campaign is now moving into lobbying mode, with organizers talking to state leaders about rampant abuses in the satellite installation industry. “This is a good time, because with the budget shortfalls, politicians are more eager to crack down on tax cheats,” Brock said.

Rampant Abuse

Broadcasting is another industry where the practice has become widespread. “Many broadcast technicians will work for one of the big networks, be considered an employee, but then go work for another network, do the exact same job, and all of a sudden they become contractors,” said Broadcasting Department Director Ro Wratschko.

Many smaller production companies are also notorious for misclassifying employees to give them unfair advantage over local signatory companies. “They are bidding for the same work as our union shops but they are illegally getting out of paying the same taxes we do, so they have a leg up,” he said.

While not as rampant in the electrical construction industry as it is in other trades, many inside locals have confronted nonunion contractors trying to pass off their employees as contractors. Last fall, Dublin, Calif., Local 595 helped bring to light one Bay Area contractor who cost the state and her employees millions of dollars by illegally misclassifying them.

“It’s the primary means for nonunion contractors to get out of their responsibilities to their employees and try to cut into our market share,” said Kirk Groenendaal, Special Assistant to the International President for Membership Development.

Federal prosecution of companies that misclassify their workers as contractors was nonexistent under the Bush administration, says Political and Legislative Department International Representative Dan Gardner, but the tide is turning.

President Obama has promised to hire an additional 100 investigators to look at companies accused of misclassifying workers and the Internal Revenue Service announced in February that it was launching a three-year nationwide investigation of the practice.

On Capitol Hill, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) has introduced the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act of 2009—with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) sponsoring a House version—which beefs up enforcement of worker classification regulations and closes tax loopholes used by unscrupulous employers.

In April, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) introduced a similar bill—the Employee Misclassification Act—that focuses on tougher enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Department of Labor also recently announced tougher regulations of worker classification regulations, calling on employers to disclose to their employees their work status.

State authorities are also intensifying their crackdown. In Iowa, a six-month investigation by the labor department recently found more than 100 companies guilty of misclassifying employees, while in California, Attorney General Jerry Brown is aggressively going after lawbreakers, recently filing a $4.3 million lawsuit against a construction company with several public works contracts that he says cheated workers out of wages.

In Nebraska, a bill is under serious consideration that would target trucking and construction companies that abuse the independent contractor label.

Gardner said that the IBEW is working closely with NECA contractors and other businesses to push Congress to endorse Sens. Kerry’s and Brown’s legislation to crack down on lawbreakers. “It’s wrong for workers, wrong for taxpayers and wrong for the businesses that play by the rules and follow the law.”

This post originally appeared in IBEW.org on June 2, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Alexander Hogan is Communications Specialist for the IBEW.

No doubt following up on Charlie Sullivan’s post on unpaid law student internships, Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times has a story on the more general use of these internships.  It’s obviously been an issue for some time, but the bad economy has given employers more incentives to pinch pennies and made interns more desperate for experience, even the unpaid variety.  These internships can provide valuable experience and lead to a good job, but they can also undermine the purpose of wage laws and highlight class problems when only more wealth students can afford months of unpaid full-time work.  From the article:

With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

The Labor Department says it is cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.

The story also notes the DOL’s criteria for legal, unpaid internships, including similarity to academic or vocational training; no displacement of regular, paid workers; and that the employer derive no immediate advantage from the intern.  That last one, in particular, seems hard to reach in a lot of cases.

Remember that you heard it here first.

*This post originally appeared in Workplace Prof Blog on April 4, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Professor Hirsch joined the University of Tennessee law faculty in August 2004 after working in the Appellate Court Branch of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. and serving as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Haldane R. Mayer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Honorable Robert R. Beezer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His practice experience focused on labor and employment law and he currently writes and teaches in this area, as well as federal courts. He also regularly speaks on various aspects of labor and employment law.