Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why interns don’t deserve pay

The ‘intern justice’ movement is preposterous – and damaging

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issue 17 August 2013

In the modern political firmament, is there any creature more ridiculous than the agitating intern? Interns are rising up. These one-time coffee-makers have reimagined themselves as history-makers, fancying that they are latter-day Wilberforces striking a blow against the ‘internship slave trade’. They’re demanding back pay, retrospective remuneration for all that hard graft in air-conditioned offices with nothing but a usually paid-for Pret sandwich to sustain them.

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