Intern Bill of Rights: Unintended Consequences to Follow?

A recent NY Times article reported on a court ruling in favor of a couple interns who claimed they were not fairly paid for their work. Author Steve Greenhouse points out that while it could be a victory for the litigants, ultimately it could bode poorly for internship programs. Legal precedence is widely referenced and applied by legal teams, and is notoriously difficult to overturn. This particular internship involved work on a movie production set, but expect the decision to ripple through to even engineering and science business programs. An estimated 1,000,000 internships are hosted each year in America, a significant portion of which could be eliminated out of an abundance of caution and fear of being sued. Is this another "careful what you wish for, you might just get it" scenario?

Posted June 2013

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...