Vice broke a stunning bit of news yesterday when it published a massive essay cataloging the ways in which left-of-center news outlets are complete and utter hypocrites when it comes to their support for the minimum wage. Turns out that most of these publications, which have long argued for increases to the minimum wage and against the exploitation of labor by evil capitalists, pay their interns either nothing or "starvation wages."
Charles Davis reported that a veritable who's who of noted left wing outlets—stalwarts like the American Prospect and the New Republic and Mother Jones and Salon—fail to pay their interns the minimum wage. Indeed, Mother Jones gave tips to its interns on how to qualify for food stamps, a ploy seemingly right out of the Walmart playbook. Of special interest to me, however, was the fact that In These Times pays its interns zero dollars an hour. Wrote Davis:
In These Times, which has published work by left-wing icons such as Noam Chomsky and Barbara Ehrenreich, is currently hiring interns to do everything from editing to fundraising—but none of those funds are set aside to pay those raising them. On its official Twitter account, the publication has said, "Interns must unite to stop the trend toward free labor becoming the norm," but it did not reply when asked if such a campaign should include its own employees.
I say I found this of special interest because the face of In These Times, Mike Elk, claims to be a stalwart champion of the working man. For instance, when local watering hole Boundary Stone was being attacked for daring to point out that massive increases to the minimum wage would negatively impact not only the business but also their workers, Elk was outraged. He led the charge against the restaurant on Twitter:
I refused to patronize @BoundaryStoneDC before they came out againt min wage, this just reaffirms my belief that its a douche bar
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) November 19, 2013
.@BoundaryStoneDC was already too big for "The Shitkickers Labor Reporters Convention" - they defintely wont be having it now
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) November 19, 2013
.@BoundaryStoneDC stands by anti-min wag position in an interview with the Washington Post http://t.co/mk6FERT2fX
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) November 20, 2013
Pro-union labor reporter Elk has also written extensively on the issue for In These Times. For instance, here he is slamming the National Restaurant Association for opposing increases to the minimum wage:
Cain was particularly effective during the 1996 fight over the minimum wage. Approximately 3.3 million tipped workers (with 2 million of them being servers) receive a substandard minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. Between 1950 and 1991, the wage for restaurant servers had always increased every time the minimum wage increased. In the 1996 fight over increasing the minimum wage, however, Cain was determined not to see server’s wage increase in conjunction for the first time ever. And that's exactly what happened.
Herman Cain did more than just prevent servers from seeing their wages increased. He worked hard to turn politicians against using minimum wage increases as a popular election year slogan to win votes from underpaid workers.
Waiters, of course, make way, way more than $2.13 an hour because they earn the vast majority of their income from tips. In These Times' interns, meanwhile, make way, way less than $2.13 an hour even as heartless corporate lackeys like Elk earn a decent living.
Here's another piece authored by Elk in which he decries a proposed minimum wage hike for being too small:
The $1.10-an-hour difference between the president’s proposal and Congressional Democrats’ plan would have a cumulative effect. Under both plans, once the minimum wage rate is set, it will thereafter be adjusted as a percentage of inflation, and is unlikely to make a jump as big as $1.10 an hour in one year.
He seems really upset about that $1.10 per hour gap. Yet he is still willing to work for an outlet that has a $7.25 per hour gap between the federal minimum wage and what it pays its most vulnerable employees. For shame!
Elk spoke out against the Huffington Post for refusing to pay its volunteer contributors:
As unpaid internships become the norm among a new generation of workers, more and more employers are finding interesting ways to classify those working for them as "non-employees" who don't need to be paid. This classification occurs despite the fact that employers often force unpaid workers to obey the same rules as paid workers. ...
The standards of conduct imposed on Huffington Post bloggers are regimented and employee-like compared to what's expected from social media users. (Full disclosure: I was"fired" as an unpaid blogger for the Huffington Post in January 2011 for not meeting such standards, when I used my status as a Huffington Post blogger to help 200 construction workers break into a conference of bankers.)
One imagines that In These Times interns are held to some sort of standards. Yet they are also unpaid. What gives, Mike?
"I have always argued that we should pay them," Elk said when contacted by the Free Beacon's Alana Goodman, to whom Elk previously said, "I hope you fucking burn in hell. ... Go fuck yourself." "It wasn't fair when I had to work as an Unpaid [sic] intern at campaign for Americas future [sic, sic] and it's not fair that interns working on my stuff aren't getting paid either."
Strong words, kind of. But has Elk resigned in protest? Is he picketing the In These Times office? Has he redistributed his own pay into the pockets of the magazine's interns? As best as I can tell, no. But he is engaging in some pretty impressive slacktivism! Look at all these tweets!
important story focuses on exploited unpaid interns @ lefty mags including @inthesetimesmag http://t.co/jG36UkP0Uh
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) December 2, 2013
its so defeaning quite all the liberal reporters from mags in article on unpaid interns who arent saying anything http://t.co/jG36UkP0Uh
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) December 2, 2013
look folks at lefty mags if u wanna advocate for unpaid interns on twitter, its protected under recent NLRB rulings #organize
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) December 2, 2013
Slacktivism: changing the world since two thousand and never!
Of course, Business Genius Mike Elk has figured out the real villain here: people who pay nothing for something his organization gives away for free.
readers who read publications & don't pay in somehow are also exploiting workers
— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) December 3, 2013
That's a special kind of brilliant: "You're just as bad as us even though you didn't hire someone you couldn't afford to pay!" No wonder labor unions are in such great shape.
Full disclosure: The Free Beacon doesn't pay its interns either. But, then again, we've never pretended that we believe interns should be paid or that minimum wage hikes are a good idea or that workers are entitled to a "living wage." People should be allowed to work for whatever wage they can negotiate, be it zero or 15 or 100 or 400 dollars per hour.