LB,
that is your opinion and I've stated mine. I'm not the one who is hiring these interns. I have no control of how and if they get paid and I have no control of paying them. This is where my 'shaky ground' ethics come in and I try to compensate them somehow.
And those criteria are the ones that make unpaid internship LEGAL.
I never said anything about the posted 'unpaid work' ad to begin with and I never argued how wrong that is.
The Law, NCARB, and IDP intentions all seem pretty clear.
"grey area" or technical loop holes can be used to justify just about any situation. Doesn't make it right or within the intention of the law.
Nevertheless, unpaid interns lead to underpaid professionals leading to lower fees for all over time.
If you can't pay people at least min. wage to work for you, whether its CDS, marketing, or even taking out the trash, either juggle it yourself or its time to turn off the lights.
See, the problem with unpaid internships is that without a contract, they are essentially illegal. And if you're in a right-to-work state, ultimately contractual agreements are about as binding as dog crap on a hot tarmac [easy to separate but leaves a mess].
I don't have full on Architecture™ skills but I could hold my weight at a smaller and or firm that has specific specializations. I have offered my "ability to work for free" to several more local firms-- but none of them like the idea of having an obstruction in their office their to "learn" and "not make money." It is an even more troubling issue when most of the firms I've approached want very defined education and skill sets for the glory of "working for free."
This, for me, is even more further complicated. The "Government" does not permit free internships of any kind. Most governments like to tout how awesome and to the book they are... so hiring anyone less than the "livable wage" is a pretty piss poor indicator of a government's "status." The livable wage is usually between 14-18 dollars an hour. And because of the complication of "exempt and non-exempt" employees, they have to start giving you benefits after $426 or $453 a week (not sure of the exact figure) or if you work more than 40 hours.
So even at the highest figure and lowest wage, you can only work a maximum of 32 hours a week before you become an expensive full-blown employee.
So, if you're working an office job in a professional capacity for a government... any government offering you 8.25 an hour is not typically a government you want to be working for.
Added on top of that fact, the biggest entry-level-hiring government entities have been broke for at least two years. So, in reality, being a planner, architectural specialist, urban designer or environmental designer for the government as an entry-level hire is simply not happening... at all. None of them can afford neither the McJob Intern or the Livable-Wage Intern.
As a planner, I'd have to agree with LB and others who have made comments about sticking up for what you are worth or think you are worth. Anyone who is creative enough can make a period of absence in employment seem like not such a huge blight on your resume.
For me personally, the cost of driving and the cost of working does not justify working at a McJob for 25 hours a week. By having more free time, I can easily lower my cost of living. Doing odd jobs and tutoring allows me to work for more money an hour than working more hours for less money. And because I never make enough money to warrant a 1099 and I don't fall into any tax bracket, I don't lose money by paying taxes.
So, if I worked a McJob, I'd make 12,000 but have to pay three times the amount of personal expenses and then have to pay an additional 15% out. My number of driving miles would triple working an actual job and I'd be unable to eat for cheap. That would be about 2500 a year in mileage, gas and lunch plus another 300-500 dollars-- that's a sizable chunk of money. Add in on top of that time lost on the commute that could be spent working and that itself is close to 1500.
"Nevertheless, unpaid interns lead to underpaid professionals leading to lower fees for all over time."
I agree 100% on this. During my undergraduate studies, we had an international student, coming from a very wealthy family. He desperately wanted to be at a firm that he worked for free for a year or so, but upon graduation went back to Japan. After that, that firm always said "why would we pay somebody, if we can have people working for free". I blame everything on this guy!
if a client/office/etc can't afford to pay....guess what...... NO WORK WILL BE DONE... unless you have worked out a barter with both sides.... i help you/you help me.....but even then thats hard to keep straight...
sort of sad to see folks going through college and coming out with over 80g's in debt and having to work for chump change.
time to wise up and look elsewhere. architects are becoming a dime a dozen and they under cut each other for work. there doesn't seem to be a 'standard' across the board.
'every person should get paid for an honest days work'
I'm not sure what's going on up there with the whole Serb thing, but if it's anything approaching trying to out someone's real offline identity, it's completely unacceptable. I hope it's just a joke.
...and to follow up: I've never reported anyone for illegal/unethical activities (professional or otherwise) that they've discussed here on Archinect, but I HAVE reported people who have outed other's identities, and those users have (to my knowledge) been banned.
Well, I do apologize for digging up dirt or outing anyone. I do think an editor or a moderator should delete the comments in this thread containing sensitive information.
While I personally hate ad hominem attacks (AKA nothing you say matters because I don't like you, hur dur troll, blah blah blah), I would like to point out that someone arguing for free work lives in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the US.
That's why I only pointed out that particular part.
I mean should people from the hills really talk about what people in valley should be worth?
Working for free is a complete waste of time. I don't care what the economic conditions are, people should me compensated for the work that they do.
It is especially insulting in NYC. I see some that only compensate in train fare and lunch! Give me a break. From the time it takes me to get to work, pay for lunch and other expenses, I am paying to work there.
I don't have the solution of how this can be worked out among firms and interns. But by the time I become licensed I will try to make some noise for the ones that come after me...
An intern works in an office unpaid for two weeks on a competition entry. The competition is invitation only, and one of the 10 teams will land an extremely large job.
The principal has established that if the competition is won, the intern will be compensated for his time and possible given a full time position. If the competition is lost, neither the firm nor the intern gets paid, but the intern (still in school) still walks away with work experience and a very good contact in the field.
What others seem to be describing is a win/lose relationship. Firm wins, interns lose. But what if the situation is either a win/win or a lose/lose?
I would say that this is legal, and moral, but you guys may see it differently, just curious.
it's kinda rough to deal w/ the ethics around it. i don't think working for free is appropriate with for-profit firms, non-profit work can be a great way to get your hands dirty and obtain some ethically good experience(architecture for humanity, architecture without borders, etc)
working for a few hundred euros dollars sucks, but it can open up a lot of doors (just ask REX, WORK AC, studio gang, neutelings riedijk, de geyter, stephane beel, MVRDV, JSD, BIG, etc)
iheartbooks: Even if the firm doesn't win the competition, the work you did for them is now part of their portfolio, and presumably looks awesome enough - due to YOUR skills - to help them impress other potential clients. That's not fair to you.
Work experience and contacts are valuable, yes. But even at minimum wage, two weeks of 12 hour days is less than one thousand bucks. Personally, I don't think firms that can't come up with a few thousand bucks should be in business.
poop, for the record, that "outing" shit is seriously uncalled for, so i hope the big green head gets rid of the personal crap. just to remind people, there has been a long past of pple doing exactly like that here, and as has been pointed out, at every instance, this site will not allow or tolerate.
i'm going to diverge from lb and a couple of others on this one - although my own business ethics has and will preclude me from taking on unpaid labor, i can see where it might work for certain people and certain situations.
a couple of examples: you have a graduating student from overseas, for whom money is not an issue, and they desperately want to work for a particular american firm. said firm has no work to support hiring this person, but they volunteer to work free. if it means they get to keep their visa and continue their education - and the money truly isn't an issue - i'm not sure who's being hurt here. if the firm otherwise wouldn't have hired someone, they're not taking a 'paying job' away from someone else.
another example: the ps1 design/installations each year seem to depend greatly on volunteer labor to get them done. the budgets that moma dishes out certainly aren't going to cover paying that many people. again, if the people who are volunteering know what they're getting into, who's being hurt?
finally, to echo the competition example above: those things (which we've only done one in our history) are incredibly time consuming and expensive. if you're a small firm like us, you simply can't shut down all the paying jobs for a month (even for 1-2 people) to throw at doing that work. it's not a question of 'a few thousand', it's all the lost income (which would be roughly 10K per employee, per month) plus the direct pay. so, if i take 2 people off, the hit to me could be as high as 30K. i don't think the proposition laid out was that out of line - the person was taking a calculated risk: if i help out and we win, i get rewarded. if we don't, i walk away with material for my portfolio but no cash. now, if the firm was hoping for free labor and there was no end reward - that would be wrong on multiple levels.
so, it's more of a grey area to me - clearly, if (as many examples above show) a firm is just trying to make more money off the backs of desperate people, they have a special place in hell. but that's not always the case.
your first example, you posit that no one is being hurt. can i ask, what about the non foreign, non visa needing, non living off trust fund graduate student? that's the one being hurt.
in that particular situation, the one thing that you are leaving out, is that most of those doing that work have parents that are willing to pay those firms to take on their children.
why is this so difficult? let me run a scenario by everyone based on what's been written so far.
let's say i am a GSD grad, willing to work or intern for you for free, and let's say you win ps1, and need my labor to build your installation, and let's say i get hurt on your job - hell let's just say for the sake of this argument, i am building a model, building a component of the installation, in your shop, and through some freak accident, i break my arm, cut off my index finger, snap my tibia. where is my protection, where is my workmans comp, will your insurance cover a non-employee?
you are not paying me, so you are not paying unemployment insurance, you are not paying ssi, fed and state taxes, and you are not paying anything for temporary or permanent disability insurance?
are you ready for the lawsuit?
who are you hurting?
1. yourselves.
2. your profession.
3. your competitors.
4. your employees.
5. non-employees.
6. your integrity.
in a world where something like 1 out of every 3 people (approx. 2 billion) lives on less than $1 per day, has there ever been a time when more people wouldn't benefit from being slaves?
housing & food provided for...and no delusion of entitlements.
treated like an asset instead of a person...maybe that isn't such a bad thing. why have we made this practise illegal in practically the entire world?
outed - I know I've been saying that "not all unpaid internships are illegal" but what you describe in the first scenario sounds illegal. You do see the irony in that right? A person is willing to work illegally so that they can avoid staying in the country illegally? Good luck on getting that work visa application to go through without a little creativity and some "gray areas."
I don't understand why some are coming up with these convoluted scenarios in which unpaid internships seem to be in the gray area (at best) - legally and ethically. Are you saying, exploitive unpaid internships should not be questioned because there are a few exceptions where it might actually work out?
b3 brings up a very dangerous scenario that no one has thought of yet.
To those of you who think ILLEGAL unpaid internships fall into a grey area....I'd love to hear your thoughts on that situation. Liability is a serious issue and skirting the law in this case can lead to a massive implosion.
in example #1 - no, the other grad student isn't being hurt. if the firm doesn't take this person on, they don't take anyone on. there is no money to support taking anyone on a paying job (and, by the way, this was the scenario given to me by one of the 'star' firms here in town as the only example in their firm's history as to when they took on someone who wasn't paid. they felt like they were doing the kid a favor in terms of it being a learning experience).
i'm assuming personal insurance would cover any accidents. i do agree workman's comp wouldn't.
slar - maybe it is illegal. i'll confess that, being so small, we've never had the opportunity to take on a foreign national, so i'm not familiar with the actual procedures involved. i'll assume, for the sake of discussion, that the visa isn't an issue.
beta - there isn't any protection, i completely agree. but, there isn't any protection (in that regard) if i go to help out my neighbor build a backyard barbeque pit and something happens. it's still a risk. and, for those reasons (and a hundred other), we don't personally do anything like i'm describing.
one of my main points (which didn't quite come across) is that i'm describing much more defined types of work scenarios, timewise. ps1 won't last forever and neither would a competition. that's the reason you'd have to make the call as a worker - is this something you feel a larger connection to, something that is worth all the other risks? i can't make that call for everyone - for me, it'd be no, but it's not my place to make that call for someone else.
finally, i'm not describing full time, 'i'm billing out your time and getting richer off you' situations. as noted, people who do that have a special place in hell...
look, you all are deriving something from my comments which isn't there: i'm not advocating to take people on indefinitely, without pay, simply because you can. quite the contrary, i'm merely suggesting that there are situations where the correlation isn't so exact.
I know when we had couple of interns that were working for free they were either on spring break or some other break. We couldn't hire anybody but they just simply wanted to work and didn't care if they got paid or not. The firm had to get some legal advice and had them sign some paper work to cover their asses like b3 stated above. Sometimes we had people that were related to the principals etc. that were 'working'.
outed,
Eisenman is known for hiring people without pay and he defends it all the time. They are usually people like you mentioned above, no need for money, want to get into an American firm etc. People attacked him about the issue before and guess what, he still does it.
poop - sadly, eisenman is fairly unrepentant about it. i had a classmate who did a 3 month stint there. for him, it worked. he got a great rec. letter from peter and basically got his pick of firms to work for afterwards.
There's actually an often overlooked religious component to this...
Exodus 21:1-4 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Exodus 21:7 "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."
Exodus 20:10 "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates."
Deuteronomy 15:12-18 "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
Leviticus 25:44-46 "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour."
Leviticus 25:48-53 "After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him."
This one is really bizarre -- Genesis 17:13 "He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."
And finally, the only verse from the New Testament: Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
The reason I bring this up? As puddles explain, there can be legitimate forms of slavery. The reason slavery was abolished was that a majority of people in the US were incapable of following some of the most basic conditions for keeping slaves.
In fact, these bible verses are the foundation of America, the foundation of labor laws and outlined the very creation of America.
Exodus basically lays out two concepts of slavery-- chattel slavery and bonded slavery. Firstly, slaves of the "same nation" are to be treated differently than slaves of other nations. This is further backed by Leviticus 25.
In a way, you must free slaves after 6 years and the slave gets to keep all property that is considered his property. However, it points out that female slaves have even less freedom than men slaves do.
Deuteronomy is basically the foundation of the "severance package" and "unemployment." Its premise is once your six years is up, the slave gets the bond that was originally posted on him. Once you're out the door, it was expected that you receive payment for the six years prior and are furnished with some sort of living condition. This does not apply to "out of nation" slaves.
Leviticus 25 is probably one of the most important for reasons pointed out above. It was the premise for using black slaves in the first place as it would be exceptionally hard for anyone to claim that a black person was of the same nation of gentiles, Hebrews or Semites. It also, with a combination of the above, formed one of the biggest foundations of growth in America.
That foundation was indentured servitude. Many people in Europe, mainly protestants, were being sold that America was some magical place filled with everything they always wanted. They could get there for free and could receive a free home if they signed away so many years of their life. While this worked for America for about two centuries, it wasn't returning the profits that business men in America liked.
Not to mention that the land these men were operating on were typically leased lands from a crown or aristocrat... which means once a servant or slave was granted freedom, the "ownership" of said person transferred from businessman to aristocrat. This is one of the premises behind the revolution was that the American "aristocrats" were unable to [strike]screw over[/strike] tax their own "countrymen."
This ventures into a big gray "weird area." Since most of the people of the US were slaves or servants, they also had the mark of a slave. Genesis points out that all male slaves and servants should be circumcised. So, I wonder if this has anything to do with America's fascination with circumcision.
Anyways, enough of that detour, the other problem... like the one above with Leviticus 25 44-46... is the pay raise. Leviticus 25 48-53 states that the more time you are enslaved, the more expensive a slave you will become. Simply put, every year you have served under a master... the bond on your head grows. Essentially, the foundation of a pay raise... experience makes your more valuable.
We also have, Deuteronomy 23:15-16, that states that escaped slaves cannot be returned nor punished. This essentially means that you've broken your bond, will not receive any more nor be entitled to "pay raises." This essentially is the foundation of "quitting" and another important part of American history.
The civil war was fought, in part, by this passage. Runaway black slaves, although property, were still protected by the bible. Once a slave made it away successfully, they were suppose to be granted free rights and the ability to determine whether or not they wanted to reenter the slave market. The problem with this... is that black slaves are not in the same nation... is they lack the ability to be bonded slaves.
And finally, Galatians is probably one of the most important verses in the bible and one of the tenets of Americanism. All men are created equal because all men-- slaves, freemen, women, men-- are all one under Jesus Christ.
So, slavery isn't as necessarily bad as one would think... unless it is 19th century slavery. I think the troubling thing about America's past is the entire country is founded on slavery of all types. And I think this goes even further that many America ideals of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" can really only be sustained by slavery.
So, even in context of modern labor law or the old stuffy religious law, free internships could work. But there's the issue of housing, food, clothes and that pesky severance bond at the end of service.
i now that slavery has become a taboo in the modern world...but for all of those talking abut ethics...what's worse, owning your workforce & providing shelter & food or treating your employees as "equals" while paying them minimum wage in a town like new york?
jesus, people - who in their right mind would equate two people willingly and knowingly entering into some kind of work arrangement the equivalent of slavery? are you serious?
"who in their right mind would equate two people willingly and knowingly entering into some kind of work arrangement the equivalent of slavery?"
Biblical slavery was just this. Feudal slavery was this. Landed slavery was this. Indentured servitude is this. Bonded slavery is this. Prison labor is this. These are usually and more than likely mutual agreements between two parties-- with the exception of prison slavery (hard labor) but often prisoners do have the choice more often than not.
The difference between this and the issue at hand now is that slave owners must, in part, make sure their slaves are OK.
By abolishing slavery and making people, who are considerably slaves or slave-like [limited movement, no financial freedom, suffer from working conditions], responsible for themselves, it puts the pressure of maintaining one's life on the servant and not the master.
Since making any sort of laws regarding this would abolish the prohibition of slavery, there are currently none regarding underpaid, underutilized, working poor and unpaid employees and their treatment.
That is why the government makes the distinction between minimum wage and a living wage-- the living wage is minimum amount a person can make given the context of a specific environment while maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and freedom.
Without other financial arrangements or a serious decline in personal well-being, working an underpaid job is a form of wage slavery. You can rarely reach financial self-sufficiency and therefore must continue working indefinitely. These jobs make it extremely difficult to have mobility (ie moving out of area) and to pay for basic necessities (car insurance versus dental care).
It's one thing to volunteer for a few weeks, specific projects or certain circumstances under the guise of internship... it is quite another when an employer pays nothing, expects 3 months to a year of work and wants very specific and profitable skills from unpaid labor. Especially if that employer provides little to nothing to guarantee your health and well-being.
Now, I'd see it being perfectly reasonable if an employer offered free work for free rent or some other mutual beneficial contract.
But paying to work at a job? This makes slavery look reasonable!
this got a little bit out of control...Now we know that forced to be a slave and getting your freedom on the end is the same as working willingly for some architect and the gang and getting a nice recommendation is the same.....
oh yea, then there was the raping of the women by the masters...boy, they were really "making sure that their slaves were OK"...oh man, those were the days.
That was chattel slavery which is different from regular slavery. Slavery is not a single definable phenomenon but has many different faces.
In biblical terms, slave owners were not allowed to rape their slaves and corporal punishment was only limited to flesh wounds as causing permanent disability, loss of teeth, loss of vision, breaking of the bones and the sort were of ground to strip a slave owner of his slaves, punishable by death and imprisonment. Slaves are still viewed as people (not real property) in the bible-- both old and new testament.
Technically, raping a slave is also wrong.
People haven't magically become more ethical in the last century. Lots of ethical people have existed throughout history. Yes, there are a lot of horror stories regarding slavery. A lot of those horror stories are particularly from the 19th century.
But to use literature regarding one specific form of slavery in one specific time period in one geographical area kind of doesn't get the picture. For every two horror stories of what slaveowners did to their slave in the Antebellum, there's one story of a pretty righteous slave owner.
It is not to say the system of slavery is anywhere near good but much of the Modern European Era (1400s to present) is pretty much based entirely off slavery of one form or another-- from journeymen slavery aka peonage or indentured servitude (work for education), wage slave (work to live) to even... yes... getting raped by master slavery (chattel).
By not admitting that slave practices from hundreds of years ago still exist today, we rob ourselves of objectivity to see that people are still facing fundamental problems that have pretty much existed throughout history. People have gone to war, toppled aristocratic dynasties, burned entire cities down and really in terms of it all... not a whole lot of anything has changed.
Working for free, even for a recommendation, wears away the foundation of employee rights and the premise of abolishing slavery that millions of people have worked to achieve for centuries. Working for free also pushes the boundaries of acceptable behavior in society.
I do not see what is so hard to understand about this?
"Technically, raping a slave is also morally wrong." I meant to add that because rape is still explicitly outlined as a major "do not do" in the Bible.
do you realize that some people do not believe in Bible, it's content, god etc.. Let's stick to architecture and our industry and let's not get carried away here!
Some people don't believe in it now. Some people never really believed in it.
But like any good collection of mythology present throughout many societies, it does teach lessons that differing groups (countries, cultures) can believe in.
In many Western nations, the Bible is/was the prevailing document people turned to for guidance. It is essentially "Human Resources for Dummies." In fact, many of the things the bible preached have been secularized into standing modern law.
In context, it lays out some rather fair standards for labor pre-20th century. In different a context, the Bible has not been as followed in recent history 1700s til now as it was back in the day. After the influence of the Romans vanished by 7th century, the viliest forms of slavery had mostly stopped until 2 centuries ago. Other than serfdom and domestic slavery, very few other forms existed.
I'm not a religious person but I understand the implications of the book when trying to evaluate history, especially the history of sensitive topics.
Architecture, itself, was supported from the fall of the Romans until very recently by religion and the aristocracy. It wasn't until the old system vanished that people became independently wealthy enough to purchase "architecture." The issue here is that people have become independently wealthy through both benevolent and malevolent ways.
So, my point is relatively very valid to the field of architecture.
i don't "believe" in the bible or god and consider myself a complete atheist...but i do think that orochi has shared some excellent points and some of them are via the bible (somewhat to my surprise) by using it has a historical reference rather as an instruction for living.
amazing that just the word "slavery" tends to turn people off. most of us would assume that it's just a historic relic but you might note that even the 13th amendment does make an exception for the forced labor of prisoners and with programs like unicor/federal prison industries is it any wonder that prisoners tend to be one of the fastest growing demographics. oh, and prisons are rather profitable too.
wealth is generated by exploiting other people. as architects, if we want to be successful financially (and judging by many of the comments on archinect forum, many of us do) then why wouldn't we want to at least consider using slave labor?
i wonder why it is that i don't get all fired up about this issue?
i remember when i was in arch school and i heard of ppl working for free get into certain name offices and i just thought "oh well i can't do that, i need money" BUT i really don't mind if someone does want to work for free.
Unpaid Internships
LB,
that is your opinion and I've stated mine. I'm not the one who is hiring these interns. I have no control of how and if they get paid and I have no control of paying them. This is where my 'shaky ground' ethics come in and I try to compensate them somehow.
And those criteria are the ones that make unpaid internship LEGAL.
I never said anything about the posted 'unpaid work' ad to begin with and I never argued how wrong that is.
The Law, NCARB, and IDP intentions all seem pretty clear.
"grey area" or technical loop holes can be used to justify just about any situation. Doesn't make it right or within the intention of the law.
Nevertheless, unpaid interns lead to underpaid professionals leading to lower fees for all over time.
If you can't pay people at least min. wage to work for you, whether its CDS, marketing, or even taking out the trash, either juggle it yourself or its time to turn off the lights.
See, the problem with unpaid internships is that without a contract, they are essentially illegal. And if you're in a right-to-work state, ultimately contractual agreements are about as binding as dog crap on a hot tarmac [easy to separate but leaves a mess].
I don't have full on Architecture™ skills but I could hold my weight at a smaller and or firm that has specific specializations. I have offered my "ability to work for free" to several more local firms-- but none of them like the idea of having an obstruction in their office their to "learn" and "not make money." It is an even more troubling issue when most of the firms I've approached want very defined education and skill sets for the glory of "working for free."
This, for me, is even more further complicated. The "Government" does not permit free internships of any kind. Most governments like to tout how awesome and to the book they are... so hiring anyone less than the "livable wage" is a pretty piss poor indicator of a government's "status." The livable wage is usually between 14-18 dollars an hour. And because of the complication of "exempt and non-exempt" employees, they have to start giving you benefits after $426 or $453 a week (not sure of the exact figure) or if you work more than 40 hours.
So even at the highest figure and lowest wage, you can only work a maximum of 32 hours a week before you become an expensive full-blown employee.
So, if you're working an office job in a professional capacity for a government... any government offering you 8.25 an hour is not typically a government you want to be working for.
Added on top of that fact, the biggest entry-level-hiring government entities have been broke for at least two years. So, in reality, being a planner, architectural specialist, urban designer or environmental designer for the government as an entry-level hire is simply not happening... at all. None of them can afford neither the McJob Intern or the Livable-Wage Intern.
As a planner, I'd have to agree with LB and others who have made comments about sticking up for what you are worth or think you are worth. Anyone who is creative enough can make a period of absence in employment seem like not such a huge blight on your resume.
For me personally, the cost of driving and the cost of working does not justify working at a McJob for 25 hours a week. By having more free time, I can easily lower my cost of living. Doing odd jobs and tutoring allows me to work for more money an hour than working more hours for less money. And because I never make enough money to warrant a 1099 and I don't fall into any tax bracket, I don't lose money by paying taxes.
So, if I worked a McJob, I'd make 12,000 but have to pay three times the amount of personal expenses and then have to pay an additional 15% out. My number of driving miles would triple working an actual job and I'd be unable to eat for cheap. That would be about 2500 a year in mileage, gas and lunch plus another 300-500 dollars-- that's a sizable chunk of money. Add in on top of that time lost on the commute that could be spent working and that itself is close to 1500.
No thanks on that. $14.50 an hour or bust!
very good point Orochi.
being employed (unpaid or not) costs. Its easy to survive on $5 a day when you have lots of free time and no commuting costs.
To those employers who think that they are helping people by keeping them employed five days a week on 20% less are kidding themselves.
Fire them and let them collect unemployment and seek out freelance work. They will thank you later.
This is a fucking business, any architect who is looking for unpaid help is a fucking hack! A FUCKING HACK!!!
cad,
"Nevertheless, unpaid interns lead to underpaid professionals leading to lower fees for all over time."
I agree 100% on this. During my undergraduate studies, we had an international student, coming from a very wealthy family. He desperately wanted to be at a firm that he worked for free for a year or so, but upon graduation went back to Japan. After that, that firm always said "why would we pay somebody, if we can have people working for free". I blame everything on this guy!
Damn, I'm a Serb now too!
I like how you try to brush it off and then the profile instantly goes missing.
PRO TIP: Do not delete every f*cking thing after claiming it is not yours.
me thinks there aren't that many architects in chicago named branko......pwnd!
I always wondered how a firm goes from 0-100 people in 3 years with no built work.
now I know....free 3ds max "interns"
...sad
if a client/office/etc can't afford to pay....guess what...... NO WORK WILL BE DONE... unless you have worked out a barter with both sides.... i help you/you help me.....but even then thats hard to keep straight...
sort of sad to see folks going through college and coming out with over 80g's in debt and having to work for chump change.
time to wise up and look elsewhere. architects are becoming a dime a dozen and they under cut each other for work. there doesn't seem to be a 'standard' across the board.
'every person should get paid for an honest days work'
I'm not sure what's going on up there with the whole Serb thing, but if it's anything approaching trying to out someone's real offline identity, it's completely unacceptable. I hope it's just a joke.
...and to follow up: I've never reported anyone for illegal/unethical activities (professional or otherwise) that they've discussed here on Archinect, but I HAVE reported people who have outed other's identities, and those users have (to my knowledge) been banned.
Outing is NOT COOL.
as my monkier would attest...
Well, I do apologize for digging up dirt or outing anyone. I do think an editor or a moderator should delete the comments in this thread containing sensitive information.
While I personally hate ad hominem attacks (AKA nothing you say matters because I don't like you, hur dur troll, blah blah blah), I would like to point out that someone arguing for free work lives in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the US.
That's why I only pointed out that particular part.
I mean should people from the hills really talk about what people in valley should be worth?
Also, ban me. Don't care. Whatever.
Working for free is a complete waste of time. I don't care what the economic conditions are, people should me compensated for the work that they do.
It is especially insulting in NYC. I see some that only compensate in train fare and lunch! Give me a break. From the time it takes me to get to work, pay for lunch and other expenses, I am paying to work there.
I don't have the solution of how this can be worked out among firms and interns. But by the time I become licensed I will try to make some noise for the ones that come after me...
Question of the thread:
An intern works in an office unpaid for two weeks on a competition entry. The competition is invitation only, and one of the 10 teams will land an extremely large job.
The principal has established that if the competition is won, the intern will be compensated for his time and possible given a full time position. If the competition is lost, neither the firm nor the intern gets paid, but the intern (still in school) still walks away with work experience and a very good contact in the field.
What others seem to be describing is a win/lose relationship. Firm wins, interns lose. But what if the situation is either a win/win or a lose/lose?
I would say that this is legal, and moral, but you guys may see it differently, just curious.
*Question for the thread:
Sorry...
outed,
what's a monkier?
:)
it's kinda rough to deal w/ the ethics around it. i don't think working for free is appropriate with for-profit firms, non-profit work can be a great way to get your hands dirty and obtain some ethically good experience(architecture for humanity, architecture without borders, etc)
working for a few hundred euros dollars sucks, but it can open up a lot of doors (just ask REX, WORK AC, studio gang, neutelings riedijk, de geyter, stephane beel, MVRDV, JSD, BIG, etc)
iheartbooks: Even if the firm doesn't win the competition, the work you did for them is now part of their portfolio, and presumably looks awesome enough - due to YOUR skills - to help them impress other potential clients. That's not fair to you.
Work experience and contacts are valuable, yes. But even at minimum wage, two weeks of 12 hour days is less than one thousand bucks. Personally, I don't think firms that can't come up with a few thousand bucks should be in business.
poop, for the record, that "outing" shit is seriously uncalled for, so i hope the big green head gets rid of the personal crap. just to remind people, there has been a long past of pple doing exactly like that here, and as has been pointed out, at every instance, this site will not allow or tolerate.
Off-topic comments related to the "outing" of an Archinect member have been removed. Heated debate is great, but personal attacks are not.
ok, back to the original topic...
i'm going to diverge from lb and a couple of others on this one - although my own business ethics has and will preclude me from taking on unpaid labor, i can see where it might work for certain people and certain situations.
a couple of examples: you have a graduating student from overseas, for whom money is not an issue, and they desperately want to work for a particular american firm. said firm has no work to support hiring this person, but they volunteer to work free. if it means they get to keep their visa and continue their education - and the money truly isn't an issue - i'm not sure who's being hurt here. if the firm otherwise wouldn't have hired someone, they're not taking a 'paying job' away from someone else.
another example: the ps1 design/installations each year seem to depend greatly on volunteer labor to get them done. the budgets that moma dishes out certainly aren't going to cover paying that many people. again, if the people who are volunteering know what they're getting into, who's being hurt?
finally, to echo the competition example above: those things (which we've only done one in our history) are incredibly time consuming and expensive. if you're a small firm like us, you simply can't shut down all the paying jobs for a month (even for 1-2 people) to throw at doing that work. it's not a question of 'a few thousand', it's all the lost income (which would be roughly 10K per employee, per month) plus the direct pay. so, if i take 2 people off, the hit to me could be as high as 30K. i don't think the proposition laid out was that out of line - the person was taking a calculated risk: if i help out and we win, i get rewarded. if we don't, i walk away with material for my portfolio but no cash. now, if the firm was hoping for free labor and there was no end reward - that would be wrong on multiple levels.
so, it's more of a grey area to me - clearly, if (as many examples above show) a firm is just trying to make more money off the backs of desperate people, they have a special place in hell. but that's not always the case.
outed,
your first example, you posit that no one is being hurt. can i ask, what about the non foreign, non visa needing, non living off trust fund graduate student? that's the one being hurt.
in that particular situation, the one thing that you are leaving out, is that most of those doing that work have parents that are willing to pay those firms to take on their children.
why is this so difficult? let me run a scenario by everyone based on what's been written so far.
let's say i am a GSD grad, willing to work or intern for you for free, and let's say you win ps1, and need my labor to build your installation, and let's say i get hurt on your job - hell let's just say for the sake of this argument, i am building a model, building a component of the installation, in your shop, and through some freak accident, i break my arm, cut off my index finger, snap my tibia. where is my protection, where is my workmans comp, will your insurance cover a non-employee?
you are not paying me, so you are not paying unemployment insurance, you are not paying ssi, fed and state taxes, and you are not paying anything for temporary or permanent disability insurance?
are you ready for the lawsuit?
who are you hurting?
1. yourselves.
2. your profession.
3. your competitors.
4. your employees.
5. non-employees.
6. your integrity.
in a world where something like 1 out of every 3 people (approx. 2 billion) lives on less than $1 per day, has there ever been a time when more people wouldn't benefit from being slaves?
housing & food provided for...and no delusion of entitlements.
treated like an asset instead of a person...maybe that isn't such a bad thing. why have we made this practise illegal in practically the entire world?
outed - I know I've been saying that "not all unpaid internships are illegal" but what you describe in the first scenario sounds illegal. You do see the irony in that right? A person is willing to work illegally so that they can avoid staying in the country illegally? Good luck on getting that work visa application to go through without a little creativity and some "gray areas."
I don't understand why some are coming up with these convoluted scenarios in which unpaid internships seem to be in the gray area (at best) - legally and ethically. Are you saying, exploitive unpaid internships should not be questioned because there are a few exceptions where it might actually work out?
b3 brings up a very dangerous scenario that no one has thought of yet.
To those of you who think ILLEGAL unpaid internships fall into a grey area....I'd love to hear your thoughts on that situation. Liability is a serious issue and skirting the law in this case can lead to a massive implosion.
hi beta -
in example #1 - no, the other grad student isn't being hurt. if the firm doesn't take this person on, they don't take anyone on. there is no money to support taking anyone on a paying job (and, by the way, this was the scenario given to me by one of the 'star' firms here in town as the only example in their firm's history as to when they took on someone who wasn't paid. they felt like they were doing the kid a favor in terms of it being a learning experience).
i'm assuming personal insurance would cover any accidents. i do agree workman's comp wouldn't.
slar - maybe it is illegal. i'll confess that, being so small, we've never had the opportunity to take on a foreign national, so i'm not familiar with the actual procedures involved. i'll assume, for the sake of discussion, that the visa isn't an issue.
beta - there isn't any protection, i completely agree. but, there isn't any protection (in that regard) if i go to help out my neighbor build a backyard barbeque pit and something happens. it's still a risk. and, for those reasons (and a hundred other), we don't personally do anything like i'm describing.
one of my main points (which didn't quite come across) is that i'm describing much more defined types of work scenarios, timewise. ps1 won't last forever and neither would a competition. that's the reason you'd have to make the call as a worker - is this something you feel a larger connection to, something that is worth all the other risks? i can't make that call for everyone - for me, it'd be no, but it's not my place to make that call for someone else.
finally, i'm not describing full time, 'i'm billing out your time and getting richer off you' situations. as noted, people who do that have a special place in hell...
c'mon...it should be simple...if someone is doing work for you, you pay them...
but then again, people are advocating slavery now, so who knows what makes sense anymore...
should be, but it's not.
look, you all are deriving something from my comments which isn't there: i'm not advocating to take people on indefinitely, without pay, simply because you can. quite the contrary, i'm merely suggesting that there are situations where the correlation isn't so exact.
I know when we had couple of interns that were working for free they were either on spring break or some other break. We couldn't hire anybody but they just simply wanted to work and didn't care if they got paid or not. The firm had to get some legal advice and had them sign some paper work to cover their asses like b3 stated above. Sometimes we had people that were related to the principals etc. that were 'working'.
outed,
Eisenman is known for hiring people without pay and he defends it all the time. They are usually people like you mentioned above, no need for money, want to get into an American firm etc. People attacked him about the issue before and guess what, he still does it.
poop - sadly, eisenman is fairly unrepentant about it. i had a classmate who did a 3 month stint there. for him, it worked. he got a great rec. letter from peter and basically got his pick of firms to work for afterwards.
outed, if i help my neighbor and get hurt, one of two things happen; either their homeowners or my homeowners policy would pay.
and that is exactly why he does it, because his reputation ends up being like a payment! I'd rather get paid so I can buy my beer when I'm young!
There's actually an often overlooked religious component to this...
Exodus 21:1-4 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
Exodus 21:7 "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."
Exodus 20:10 "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates."
Deuteronomy 15:12-18 "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him."
Leviticus 25:44-46 "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour."
Leviticus 25:48-53 "After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him."
This one is really bizarre -- Genesis 17:13 "He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant."
Deuteronomy 23:15-16 "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him."
And finally, the only verse from the New Testament:
Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
The reason I bring this up? As puddles explain, there can be legitimate forms of slavery. The reason slavery was abolished was that a majority of people in the US were incapable of following some of the most basic conditions for keeping slaves.
In fact, these bible verses are the foundation of America, the foundation of labor laws and outlined the very creation of America.
Exodus basically lays out two concepts of slavery-- chattel slavery and bonded slavery. Firstly, slaves of the "same nation" are to be treated differently than slaves of other nations. This is further backed by Leviticus 25.
In a way, you must free slaves after 6 years and the slave gets to keep all property that is considered his property. However, it points out that female slaves have even less freedom than men slaves do.
Deuteronomy is basically the foundation of the "severance package" and "unemployment." Its premise is once your six years is up, the slave gets the bond that was originally posted on him. Once you're out the door, it was expected that you receive payment for the six years prior and are furnished with some sort of living condition. This does not apply to "out of nation" slaves.
Leviticus 25 is probably one of the most important for reasons pointed out above. It was the premise for using black slaves in the first place as it would be exceptionally hard for anyone to claim that a black person was of the same nation of gentiles, Hebrews or Semites. It also, with a combination of the above, formed one of the biggest foundations of growth in America.
That foundation was indentured servitude. Many people in Europe, mainly protestants, were being sold that America was some magical place filled with everything they always wanted. They could get there for free and could receive a free home if they signed away so many years of their life. While this worked for America for about two centuries, it wasn't returning the profits that business men in America liked.
Not to mention that the land these men were operating on were typically leased lands from a crown or aristocrat... which means once a servant or slave was granted freedom, the "ownership" of said person transferred from businessman to aristocrat. This is one of the premises behind the revolution was that the American "aristocrats" were unable to [strike]screw over[/strike] tax their own "countrymen."
This ventures into a big gray "weird area." Since most of the people of the US were slaves or servants, they also had the mark of a slave. Genesis points out that all male slaves and servants should be circumcised. So, I wonder if this has anything to do with America's fascination with circumcision.
Anyways, enough of that detour, the other problem... like the one above with Leviticus 25 44-46... is the pay raise. Leviticus 25 48-53 states that the more time you are enslaved, the more expensive a slave you will become. Simply put, every year you have served under a master... the bond on your head grows. Essentially, the foundation of a pay raise... experience makes your more valuable.
We also have, Deuteronomy 23:15-16, that states that escaped slaves cannot be returned nor punished. This essentially means that you've broken your bond, will not receive any more nor be entitled to "pay raises." This essentially is the foundation of "quitting" and another important part of American history.
The civil war was fought, in part, by this passage. Runaway black slaves, although property, were still protected by the bible. Once a slave made it away successfully, they were suppose to be granted free rights and the ability to determine whether or not they wanted to reenter the slave market. The problem with this... is that black slaves are not in the same nation... is they lack the ability to be bonded slaves.
And finally, Galatians is probably one of the most important verses in the bible and one of the tenets of Americanism. All men are created equal because all men-- slaves, freemen, women, men-- are all one under Jesus Christ.
So, slavery isn't as necessarily bad as one would think... unless it is 19th century slavery. I think the troubling thing about America's past is the entire country is founded on slavery of all types. And I think this goes even further that many America ideals of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" can really only be sustained by slavery.
So, even in context of modern labor law or the old stuffy religious law, free internships could work. But there's the issue of housing, food, clothes and that pesky severance bond at the end of service.
eh, you're wrong, moving on.
okay....
nice post orochi...very nice
i now that slavery has become a taboo in the modern world...but for all of those talking abut ethics...what's worse, owning your workforce & providing shelter & food or treating your employees as "equals" while paying them minimum wage in a town like new york?
yea, all the best fun has been taken away. the whippings until the skin was flayed off your bone...you just can't get those kind of kicks anymore.
jesus, people - who in their right mind would equate two people willingly and knowingly entering into some kind of work arrangement the equivalent of slavery? are you serious?
i'm done with this one....
"who in their right mind would equate two people willingly and knowingly entering into some kind of work arrangement the equivalent of slavery?"
Biblical slavery was just this. Feudal slavery was this. Landed slavery was this. Indentured servitude is this. Bonded slavery is this. Prison labor is this. These are usually and more than likely mutual agreements between two parties-- with the exception of prison slavery (hard labor) but often prisoners do have the choice more often than not.
The difference between this and the issue at hand now is that slave owners must, in part, make sure their slaves are OK.
By abolishing slavery and making people, who are considerably slaves or slave-like [limited movement, no financial freedom, suffer from working conditions], responsible for themselves, it puts the pressure of maintaining one's life on the servant and not the master.
Since making any sort of laws regarding this would abolish the prohibition of slavery, there are currently none regarding underpaid, underutilized, working poor and unpaid employees and their treatment.
That is why the government makes the distinction between minimum wage and a living wage-- the living wage is minimum amount a person can make given the context of a specific environment while maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and freedom.
Without other financial arrangements or a serious decline in personal well-being, working an underpaid job is a form of wage slavery. You can rarely reach financial self-sufficiency and therefore must continue working indefinitely. These jobs make it extremely difficult to have mobility (ie moving out of area) and to pay for basic necessities (car insurance versus dental care).
It's one thing to volunteer for a few weeks, specific projects or certain circumstances under the guise of internship... it is quite another when an employer pays nothing, expects 3 months to a year of work and wants very specific and profitable skills from unpaid labor. Especially if that employer provides little to nothing to guarantee your health and well-being.
Now, I'd see it being perfectly reasonable if an employer offered free work for free rent or some other mutual beneficial contract.
But paying to work at a job? This makes slavery look reasonable!
this got a little bit out of control...Now we know that forced to be a slave and getting your freedom on the end is the same as working willingly for some architect and the gang and getting a nice recommendation is the same.....
peace
Cheers!!!
oh yea, then there was the raping of the women by the masters...boy, they were really "making sure that their slaves were OK"...oh man, those were the days.
That was chattel slavery which is different from regular slavery. Slavery is not a single definable phenomenon but has many different faces.
In biblical terms, slave owners were not allowed to rape their slaves and corporal punishment was only limited to flesh wounds as causing permanent disability, loss of teeth, loss of vision, breaking of the bones and the sort were of ground to strip a slave owner of his slaves, punishable by death and imprisonment. Slaves are still viewed as people (not real property) in the bible-- both old and new testament.
Technically, raping a slave is also wrong.
People haven't magically become more ethical in the last century. Lots of ethical people have existed throughout history. Yes, there are a lot of horror stories regarding slavery. A lot of those horror stories are particularly from the 19th century.
But to use literature regarding one specific form of slavery in one specific time period in one geographical area kind of doesn't get the picture. For every two horror stories of what slaveowners did to their slave in the Antebellum, there's one story of a pretty righteous slave owner.
It is not to say the system of slavery is anywhere near good but much of the Modern European Era (1400s to present) is pretty much based entirely off slavery of one form or another-- from journeymen slavery aka peonage or indentured servitude (work for education), wage slave (work to live) to even... yes... getting raped by master slavery (chattel).
By not admitting that slave practices from hundreds of years ago still exist today, we rob ourselves of objectivity to see that people are still facing fundamental problems that have pretty much existed throughout history. People have gone to war, toppled aristocratic dynasties, burned entire cities down and really in terms of it all... not a whole lot of anything has changed.
Working for free, even for a recommendation, wears away the foundation of employee rights and the premise of abolishing slavery that millions of people have worked to achieve for centuries. Working for free also pushes the boundaries of acceptable behavior in society.
I do not see what is so hard to understand about this?
"Technically, raping a slave is also morally wrong." I meant to add that because rape is still explicitly outlined as a major "do not do" in the Bible.
do you realize that some people do not believe in Bible, it's content, god etc.. Let's stick to architecture and our industry and let's not get carried away here!
What about monetary slavery? hehe.....
Some people don't believe in it now. Some people never really believed in it.
But like any good collection of mythology present throughout many societies, it does teach lessons that differing groups (countries, cultures) can believe in.
In many Western nations, the Bible is/was the prevailing document people turned to for guidance. It is essentially "Human Resources for Dummies." In fact, many of the things the bible preached have been secularized into standing modern law.
In context, it lays out some rather fair standards for labor pre-20th century. In different a context, the Bible has not been as followed in recent history 1700s til now as it was back in the day. After the influence of the Romans vanished by 7th century, the viliest forms of slavery had mostly stopped until 2 centuries ago. Other than serfdom and domestic slavery, very few other forms existed.
I'm not a religious person but I understand the implications of the book when trying to evaluate history, especially the history of sensitive topics.
Architecture, itself, was supported from the fall of the Romans until very recently by religion and the aristocracy. It wasn't until the old system vanished that people became independently wealthy enough to purchase "architecture." The issue here is that people have become independently wealthy through both benevolent and malevolent ways.
So, my point is relatively very valid to the field of architecture.
i don't "believe" in the bible or god and consider myself a complete atheist...but i do think that orochi has shared some excellent points and some of them are via the bible (somewhat to my surprise) by using it has a historical reference rather as an instruction for living.
amazing that just the word "slavery" tends to turn people off. most of us would assume that it's just a historic relic but you might note that even the 13th amendment does make an exception for the forced labor of prisoners and with programs like unicor/federal prison industries is it any wonder that prisoners tend to be one of the fastest growing demographics. oh, and prisons are rather profitable too.
wealth is generated by exploiting other people. as architects, if we want to be successful financially (and judging by many of the comments on archinect forum, many of us do) then why wouldn't we want to at least consider using slave labor?
i'm a slave, a slave to love.
puddles, are you still alive.
i wonder why it is that i don't get all fired up about this issue?
i remember when i was in arch school and i heard of ppl working for free get into certain name offices and i just thought "oh well i can't do that, i need money" BUT i really don't mind if someone does want to work for free.
any thoughts on BAC's unpaid instructors, on volunteer teachers, on low-paid adjuncts, etc.?
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