SOS Article about unpaid internships and possible legal issues.

[Jind]

Interesting article in this months Sound On Sound about how litigation currently underway in the fashion industry relating to unpaid internships could eventually impact the recording industry.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr12/articles/off-the-record-0412.htm

While I don't foresee myself ever interning at a studio, as recording for me is a hobby or at best occasionally helping out some friends, what are some of the folks looking to do this as a career think about this issue?

 

[C_F_H_13]

ok here's my 2 cents:

I was an unpaid intern for about 6 months when I started. While it is literally slave labor, I was compensated pretty heavily in education. Does it pay the bills? not at all but it did end up shaping me into the successful (relatively speaking) engineer I've become.

Reality is, getting into the commercial studio business is a young mans game. If you aren't willing or are unable to work for free or basically free, then it's not an industry for you. Even now I know of studios in town that pay runners 25-50 dollars a day. Don't like it? quit, cause there's 100 other kids who can and will work for that in order to learn. People will easily drop 20,000 on recording school, but then aren't willing to pay the same in labor to learn 10 times more.

Obviously there are people who straight up use and abuse people with this system, and that's not cool...but I genuinely feel it's a necessary evil. Know a limit to how long you are willing to do it versus how much you learn. discuss it with your employer, and figure out what the reality is of getting a paid position and how long it'll take.

If you eliminate the ability for interning for free or below minimum wage, you will create an industry where studios have tiny staffs of really talented , specialized people, with no way to learn from them unless you book your own sessions.

I'm biased. I did it, I worked my ass off doing terrible, almost humiliating stuff, but I saw the end game and remained focused. I'm sitting at about 10 years now of doing nothing but working audio since I left high school. That 6 months taught me fundamentals of studio etiquette, and how to succeed. I have an assistant right now that our studio is trying out. He gets 25 dollars everytime he works with me...to learn. He lasts past my tutoring/analysis , he gets assisting gigs for 100, then a little long when he can edit it'll be 150. Will he make it? maybe, maybe not, but there's no way he'll get any better without doing it.

this of course all applies to commercial studios...home studio/self taught is a whole other world of things.

 

[sprack]

I think US law requires people who are listed as interns to either be compensated financially or with educational credit approved by their university. My company has very strict guidelines for who can be considered an intern.

 

[C_F_H_13]

I think US law requires people who are listed as interns to either be compensated financially or with educational credit approved by their university. My company has very strict guidelines for who can be considered an intern.

probably very true. However it's never enforced.

 

[Jind]

I've worked for one of the really big, big pharma companies for the last 16 years , we do have clear cut policies about the use of interns, the things they can do, total time one can intern before having to either be converted or released, with the possibilities for severe financial penalties if these guidelines are shown to be ignored. Even with contracted employees things have changed from loosely regulated to highly regulated over the past decade for the same reasons as listed in the article - fear of litigation and financial penalties. I can't tell you the amount of paperwork, both before and during an internship, I have to do to make sure everything is above the board for what should be a mutually beneficial situation for both parties. My department has cut the number of summer interns we bring in each year because the overhead has become to burdensome.

What I was more interested from the article is when do we reach the point that the fear of litigation will impact the ability to find internships if the studios are afraid of becoming defendants in class action law suits if they overstep the limitations of expectations for the conditions of a common internship arrangement. Also the fear of litigation will eventually result in higher costs in relation to the overhead involved in just ensure you are following whatever guidelines are in/or could be put in as a result of class action lawsuits, to the point that it's no longer financially feasible as your spending too much time and money documenting/overseeing compliance than the benefit of the intern provides you.

If the past decade has proven anything, it's that if a law firm can find a reason to open a class action lawsuit and sign on as many complainants as the can, they'll do it since class action lawsuits ultimately reward little to those involved with the vast majority of any decision or settlement going to the law firms in fees associated with the suit.

It's a sad statement that fear of litigation could put an end to the age old benefits of "apprenticeship" type relations where both parties traditionally benefit from an agreement of learning from unpaid work related experience.

I guess it's just another discouraging fact of the litigation happy times we live in - if there's a dollar to be made at someone else s expense, there's a lawyer out there willing to do it.

As I said I work for a huge company and it's a hassle for us, I can't imagine what it could become for a small studio owner.

 

[sprack]

Apprenticeship is also strictly regulated. I believe the only classification that falls under training someone in return for free labor is a mentorship.

 

[Jind]

I was only using the word "apprenticeship" as a general term for learning ones craft through experience with someone already qualified for the job - not really in the distinct technical classification system of intern/apprentice/employee type usage. More just a generalization.

 

[drew_drummer]

Don't like it? quit, cause there's 100 other kids who can and will work for that in order to learn. People will easily drop 20,000 on recording school, but then aren't willing to pay the same in labor to learn 10 times more.

That's the same bullshit logic that the pay to play promoters use to justify their cockheadedness. It's also the same bullshit logic that the UK government is using to justify forcing out of work people to work for free for Tesco, or get their benefits cut.

You work. You get paid. Regardless of the position. Want to hire an intern? Pay them minimum wage, or make the fucking coffee yourself.

 

[greyskull]

I interned for nothing and once I had learnt enough, I was allowed to touch things and eventually began to get paid.
I wouldnt know half the shit I know now without having done that.

 

[Ermz]

I can see it as being fairly discouraging from a studio owner's perspective.

Most owner-operator studios these days are quite capable of being operated by a single person. We don't need interns or assistants to make shit happen. Sure, it can help to have someone moving mics, rolling cables and getting the coffee, but it's certainly not worth taking a significant chunk out of an already nearly non-existent budget. My chief concern when I get contacted by guys to intern/assist is: 'is this guy going to be a douchebag who will topple the session, and my relationship with the clients?'. Before finances even become a factor I'm already quite discouraged from taking a stranger onto a project. Not to mention all the additional paperwork that employees necessitate when doing accounting and tax returns.

Most mid-level operators who take on unpaid interns are almost doing it as a kindness. These same kids could be paying tens of thousands to engineering schools for similar experience. What's asking to reset consoles, make coffee, make food runs and clean a toilet compared to all that wasted dosh? They're being paid by the education, whereas the educational facilities are taking pay for their education. It's an opportunity for an individual to prove their dedication to the craft. Without it they will never get anywhere regardless, so it creates a nice way to weed out the shitkickers.

I feel that once an assistant or intern proves themselves as a valued member of the team, then of course they should start being compensated as such. However, if we're talking about a fresh-faced kid who has come to learn the ropes, then the education should be more than worth the labor.

 

[Sloan]

^agreed

There are a few studios here I would love to work with, but it is too much to expect a one-man operation to just let some random dude on board. I hardly trust musicians around my gear, and it's all cheap shit!

 

[C_F_H_13]

That's the same bullshit logic that the pay to play promoters use to justify their cockheadedness. It's also the same bullshit logic that the UK government is using to justify forcing out of work people to work for free for Tesco, or get their benefits cut.

You work. You get paid. Regardless of the position. Want to hire an intern? Pay them minimum wage, or make the fucking coffee yourself.

There's one major difference you seem to be missing. We are training them, and more importantly we are putting in an insane amount of hours to do so. We also, aren't paid to train them. We are investing considerable resources on getting them to a position where they are actually an asset to the company/studio and not a direct hindrance like they are when they show up. We aren't talking about booking them for a night and then tell them to fuck off. We are talking about Us as employers putting in on average (based on myself) 250-300 hours of training just to get them to a level of being competent. We have about a 25% drop out/failure rate before most of them finish that time period. Not cause of lack of funds, but because they simply can't do it/ didn't realize what assisting really is...and that's where we get to the other part of this.

99% of people who go to work at a studio as an assistant have no idea what it's really like and how BORING it CAN be if you aren't motivated. You sit around for 12 hours a day waiting for shit to go wrong, all the while you must be silent and out of the way, and most importantly not involved with the process at all(unless asked)!. Alot of people, once they realize that they are tech support not creative support, quit.

Imagine spending 300 hours training someone, where you yourself aren't getting paid. Then imagine they finally get to assist...do it for a week..and quit. And you have to start the whole process over again. The little/No pay is one of many obstacles we put up to make sure that the people who apply are serious, and most importantly that they are driven. This isn't a job you can go to school for (lol), and there is no accreditation/ticket/certification you can get that shows an employer you know what you can do. The records you've done don't even matter, it's all about whether you A) know the gear and B) can work with people.

This isn't us trying to fuck people, or make more money. This is us making sure that if you're going to take up our time, you're fucking ready to work.