Versace Makes Interns Pay to Work for Free

The reason why intern abuse is rampant is because companies pay their baby boomer employees 6-figure salaries just because they have years of 'experience' and seniority and so cannot afford mid- and entry-level people that they DESPERATELY need in order to actually run the company.

I have lots of respect for anyone who put in the time to be an expert in their industry, but too often I see these older people who are outright lazy and negligent, think they're entitled to all they have - yet they don't learn new technology and don't usually have relevant ideas to compete in today's market.

A lot of our economic problems start with the baby boomers - they're the ones who wanted the McMansions, who didn't think twice about spending 100 grand on their kids' subpar college education and thereby widening the workforce gap, and who nonchalantly funded their kids' summer interning in NYC as if that would make up for not learning a damn thing in class (which in turn helped to drive up real estate).

I like the idea of using the money paid to an intern to hire a non-intern. Sort of like a 'race to the cure' but for unemployed people!

Who buys Versace anyway? Bunch of overpriced imported crap from some sleazy conglomerate.

the proceeds from the internship with Versace benefits Susan G. Komen- a terrific non profit that saves lives through breast cancer research. charitybuzz is proud to be partnering with them and helping to raise awareness for their terrific work. Versace is donating the internship with their company- and everyone benefits. We encourage people to visit www.charitybuzz.com and The Susan G. Komen fund to learn more about the terrific work being accomplished with the funds from the winning internship.

The internship became a NYC joke over 20 years ago when paid internships faded away. Only someone with family money could afford to work in one of the most expensive cities for free. Unless they can prove some productive work, I wouldn't consider it a resume builder.

If people are dumb enough to pay any amount of money for this, they deserve to be separated from there cash.

The aberrations of capitalism!

From the Labor and Employment Law Blog:

The U.S. Department of Labor has outlined a list of criteria that ALL must be met in order for an internship to be unpaid.

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;

2. The training is for the benefit of the trainee;

3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;

5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period; and

6. The employer and the trainee understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

From the above list, #4 is really the key one – all the others will follow from whether the employer derives any immediate benefit from the activities.

Doesn't that basically mean every single unpaid internship everywhere is in violation of the law? All the ones I saw when I was in college violated #4, and most of them violated #s 1, 2, and 3 as well.

Unless an internship conforms to DOL rules, the intern must be paid.

Okay I created a fake accnt, and bid up to 90,000.00

Nothing wrong with this. They're monetizing something that is in high demand and using it for a good cause.

The whole intership thing is really becoming ridiculous, now small firms are hiring unpaid interns in place of workers and now this!

Like someone said up thread, this is another addition to the Slave work force.

At least the corporate wage slaves earn something, all these interns get is credit and some experience.

Good for a teen and early twenty something, but awful for the rest of the workforce.

We need to open a shop called either

Versace 2 or

PayToInternVersace.

Take the parents money, and have the kid

wash the floor without pay.

Hahahahahahahahahaha. It's like slave labor with uglier clothes and more ribs sticking out!

what do they mean by "college credit"?

I've never understood that? so instead of taking statistics you can do an internship?

Basically, many colleges, especially in cities like ours, will outright require that a student works as an intern for a semester or two, though others will encourage it and allow you to swap out one required class for your internship. The magical thing about these internships though is that you're still paying for the credit regardless. Many colleges even have special internship programs, which more often than not are run by huge job scouting conglomerates, like Monster, who keep your information on tap as well as an estimated time of graduation that they keep of file so that they can spam you with their services once you get out into the world and realize that a degree in Chinese History won't really get you anywhere.

Any way, there is never any real accountability to make sure that the internship is actually teaching the student anything, and more often than not internship really boils down to office assistant, where as the intern came in to learn about business, or graphic design or whatever. If your in a creative field, then forget it. Everyone's looking to screw the architect, or graphic designer, or illustrator or what have you, and if your an intern, you'll probably be working a job that should pay you $20/hr, but instead you're doing for free, especially in this economy when every office is thinking about their bottom line.

But interns get 5% off Versace accessories, free metro cards and 1' $5 subs from Subway. Can't ask for more.