{"id":997,"date":"2011-09-26T08:26:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T12:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=997"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:26:23","slug":"working-for-free-class-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/09\/26\/working-for-free-class-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Working-(For Free)-Class Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque<\/em><\/p>\n

The Huffington Post has a history of causing controversy by maneuvering to acquire\u00a0free labor<\/a>.\u00a0 Now, the news website is again raising eyebrows, this time for its use of a new type of employee to keep its blogs updated:\u00a0Unpaid children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The issue brought forth by this policy is whether blogging constitutes labor (which in this case would be unpaid child labor).\u00a0 On the one hand, the vast majorities of bloggers write on their own time, without receiving any form of compensation (not that we\u2019re complaining<\/a>).\u00a0 On the other hand, many bloggers invoke the rights and protections of professional journalists, and the Huffington Post is certain to do so if the legal rights of its bloggers were ever challenged.\u00a0 But the issue I want to discuss is not that of child labor.<\/p>\n

Rather, it is the issue of exploitation of our generation.<\/p>\n

<\/span>There are many\u00a0outspoken critics<\/a>\u00a0of the Millennial generation.\u00a0 They\u00a0describe us<\/a>\u00a0as lazy, self-obsessed, entitled, and unaware of the tough nature of the real world. These critiques highlight the large number of college graduates moving back in with their parents, or going for yet another degree just to delay moving into the job market.\u00a0 Yet they ignore the fact that it\u2019s the short sighted and selfish actions of the Boomers controlling our government, businesses, and financial institutions that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis and left us in this precarious position.\u00a0 We grew up being told it was essential to graduate high school.\u00a0 Then the only way to get a job was to acquire a college degree.\u00a0 After that the Crisis hit, and it became impossible to find work without a graduate degree.\u00a0 And all the while we needed to continue stretching our wallets while working in unpaid internships.<\/p>\n

In truth, Millennials are diligent and devoted; the problem with our generation is not that we are lazy and entitled, but rather than we are too hardworking.\u00a0\u00a0Without desirable jobs available<\/a>, we continue to seek more education, and work in more and more unpaid positions to build our resumes in the hope of attaining a permanent career position.\u00a0 Some are even going so far as\u00a0paying money<\/a>\u00a0just for the chance to work without a salary. \u00a0Employers are\u00a0exploiting this<\/a>, developing an entire economy based on the free labor of an overqualified and desperate Millennial generation.<\/p>\n

This trend is largely due to the economic problems of recent years, but now the Internet is becoming a tool for manipulating the value of labor and attaining it below cost.\u00a0 The Huffington Post\u2019s controversies reflect the ease with which a company can find someone willing to perform services for free when putting the request out into cyberspace.\u00a0 Amazon\u2019s\u00a0Mechanical Turk<\/a>\u00a0is turning underpaid, informal labor into an organized and systematic practice.\u00a0 And CNN is steadily replacing employees with an unpaid army of\u00a0iReporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even in these tough times, I am sure that Millennials will rise to meet the challenges put before us.\u00a0 However, as we change, adapt, and continue to be diligent in the face of a demanding world, we must not abandon our right to payment and benefits of employment for the services we perform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque The Huffington Post has a history of causing controversy by maneuvering to acquire\u00a0free labor.\u00a0 Now, the news website […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-g5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}