AIGA Minnesota Fair Internship Compensation Pledge

In an effort to uphold the value of design, promote better practices, and encourage meaningful experiences for interns, AIGA Minnesota is seeking pledges of support for fair compensation from businesses that offer internships.

Students and professionals in a wide range of industries are affected by this issue; the design field is not alone in its need to improve its policies toward intern compensation. AIGA Minnesota has joined other AIGA chapters from around the country — notably, AIGA Philadelphia — in challenging private sector businesses to make a pledge to honor the law and fairly compensate the creative interns they may employ in the future.

Paid Internships

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that interns in the “for-profit” private sector receive at least the minimum wage for their work and overtime compensation for hours worked over forty in a workweek. Not only does this honor the individual’s status, but fair compensation shows respect for the quality of work which an intern brings to an organization.

Unpaid Internships

For an internship at a for-profit or private sector business to be legally unpaid, it must be primarily educational in nature and for the intern’s benefit. The U.S. Department of Labor outlines six key stipulations that must all be met for unpaid status to be acceptable:

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Below are designers, design firms, and organizations supporting the Fair Internship Compensation Pledge in Minnesota.

Search Entries:

Seth Johnson Design	http://www.sethjohnson.org
UNO Branding	http://www.unobranding.com
YYES	http://www.yyes.org

For more information about the concerted effort upon which this initiative is based, please visit the AIGA Philadelphia website.

Thank you for your support.

—the board of directors of AIGA Minnesota