Is it OK to work for free?

Recently I had dinner with a couple I’ve known for many years. They question some of the ideas I am promoting here, and they point out that working for free can be illegal (in violation of minimum wage laws) and perhaps even immoral (as in the case of slavery).

Here is my response to them:

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Dear Friends,

Thank you for talking with me. We have known each other for a very long time. As you have said, we disagree on many things, but I suspect we mostly disagree on means and agree on ends. Although it may not seem like it at times, I think we have similar values.

As you know, I promote the idea that people work for free when they can’t find employment. You seem to be against some of my ideas, and have told me that in certain circumstances it is immoral or illegal to work for free.

I certainly do not propose that anyone violate the law, and it is clear that under certain circumstances, employing someone for free violates the minimum wage laws. Anyone who has any doubt should check with an expert. And I certainly don’t want to advocate for immoral acts.  What guiding principle shall we use regarding morality? Is it good enough to ask, “What if everyone did this?” or “Would I want to be treated the way I am treating others?”

Let us consider extreme examples.

On one extreme, you would not believe that someone who cooks dinner for a friend should be demand payment because to cook for free takes a job away from a chef.

At the other extreme, if a wealthy factory owner fired all his employees and replaced them all with unpaid “interns” then you would consider that immoral. Just because an employer can find someone to work for free does not, in my mind, relieve them of moral responsibilities. The only reason I would not suggest the workers burn down that factory is that I am not going to advocate illegal acts.

Now, let’s look at the middle ground. I can certainly cook a meal for my friends for free. May I become a cook for a non-profit soup kitchen and not be paid? If I start a restaurant, may I work for myself without pay? I would think so… although here I am making an investment and might have expectation for a return in the future.

Let us imagine I want to become a chef and open a restaurant some day. A friend of mine is a chef and owns a restaurant that is failing. May I become his assistant chef without being paid so as to learn the ropes?  Although I am gaining experience, I am not earning the minimum wage, and I am keeping someone else from having a paying job that would have existed if my friend could have afforded it. Is there something immoral about helping a friend?

If this is OK, is it only friendship that makes it so? What if I didn’t have any friends who owned restaurants but I still wanted to gain experience? May I ask for a job as an unpaid assistant at a failing restaurant run by a stranger? We may very well become friends, for everyone is a stranger until you get to know them. Is being a potential friend good enough to help a stranger?

Now, imagine I have become pretty good and I want to learn  from a master. But the only master chef in town is very successful. He could pay me, but he doesn’t want to because he has all the assistants he needs. If he is willing, would you permit me to offer to work for him without pay? Would you allow him to take me under his wing without paying me? Do you think that would be immoral? If you were writing the laws, would you make it illegal?

Consider my friend with a failing restaurant, would you allow me to give him a gift of money… say, $10,000? What if my friend decided to then hire me as an assistant so I could learn the ropes? In effect, he is paying me with my own money. Would you allow that? What if, when I proposed the idea, he said, “Instead of giving me money to help me out, I would rather you help me out directly with your labor.” Would you prevent that? Is it immoral for him and I to do this? Is it moral for another person (or the law) to prevent us?

Much of the publishing world is run on unpaid labor. At one magazine only seven employees out of 30 people received pay. Do you believe that if the magazine cannot pay everyone, it deserves to go out of business? Let us imagine it does cease to exist, so now nobody is working at all, even the seven people who had been drawing salaries. Is the world now somehow better off? I can imagine those thirty people might not have liked their financial circumstances, but should you have the power to force the magazine to close because YOU did not like the way they conducted their business? Would that be a moral act on your part?

Imagine the magazine folds of its own accord and the twenty-three unpaid interns start their own on-line magazine, working only for equity and a share of profits, if they ever materialize. With a certain ironic justice, they offer to let their previous bosses join them as unpaid interns. The bosses say they would be glad to; they would rather be helping their former colleagues get off the ground than sit at home pining for the good old days. Would you allow that to happen? Would preventing it be a moral act?

We talked about how working for free can be tantamount to slavery, and how large farmers might (and often do) exploit workers. During harvest time, a farmer (many of which are large faceless corporations) will perhaps house, clothe, and feed itinerant workers… keeping them alive for a few months in exchange for labor, but little else. And when the season is over, they are let go with little regard to how they will survive the winter. You (and I) might envision circumstances where this is in fact worse than slavery for when such workers were the property of the farmer, there was an economic incentive to keep these people alive and healthy through the winter, so they could work the fields again. Treating people this way is unconscionable, and I think that if someone were unemployed, and they saw a way to put an end to such practices, then working to end them (even if not being paid to do so) would be noble work. It is that second kind of unpaid work that I am promoting, not the first. And if you were well off, and you pursued putting an end to such practices, and others chose to follow your lead in putting an end to this practice, I would not hold the fact that you were well off against you. And I would not demand that you pay those who follow you in your mission. If your mission grew to have millions of followers, you might be very effective in ending such exploitive acts, but you might easily go bankrupt paying each of your “workers” even minimum wage for just a few hours of labor.  I choose not to judge others by the size of their bank account, but by how they spend their money, and by their acts.

But, should I leave any room for forgiveness in my condemnation of farmers who only shelter and feed their short-term labor, and who pay not one cent to help their workers through the winter? What about WWOOF which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Their website (www.wwoof.org) says, “WWOOF is an exchange – In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.” Are such farmers acting morally? Or would shutting those farmers down be the immoral act? I think the latter. I have met people who have volunteered their labor in such a program, and they reported that they were better for it. But what is the difference between a college kid, supported by parents of means, volunteering their labor to a farmer for the summer and the agri-business exploiting day-labor? Perhaps those kids are acting immorally by learning how to farm, while helping a farmer survive economically, instead of forcing the organic farmer to pay a living wage and helping bankrupt them if they cannot make ends meet without paying salary? If I had the power to put an end to those practices, and I did, would I not be committing the immoral act?

I told you the story about how Sally landed a job as secretary at a company I worked for. She offered to replace the temp for no pay while she continued to look for work. After two weeks, my boss liked her so much, he hired her – and paid her back to the first day. Do you think it was moral for her to offer to work for free? Was it moral for him to accept?

You asked me the question: “What would keep me from having Sally work for me for 2 weeks for free, and then replace her with someone else who was willing to work for free – and repeat this over and over until I could have a year’s secretarial help without having ever paid anyone anything?” To this I reply, “Perhaps your conscience would prevent you from doing that.” Mine certainly would. But, I am not beyond helping a secretarial school rotate their students through my business so they can get practical experience in an office. And I can imagine not paying them, just as I have received free haircuts from students learning the haircutting trade.

You asked how big the company was that employed Sally. The answer is nine people: the owner, four salesmen, three of us in systems, and Sally. I think you asked because it might or might not have been illegal depending on company size, since companies with fewer than fifteen employees are exempt from certain laws. I don’t know if they are exempt from minimum wage laws, but a question is, does size matter when it comes to being exempt from moral law?

Can laws themselves be immoral? There are many firms that employ unpaid interns, but only if they are earning college credit. The reason is that minimum wage laws have an exemption for students who are earning credit since they are receiving compensation, albeit in the form of credit, not money. But is it really college credit that is the compensation, or is it the experience, whether a college recognizes it or not? The effect of this law is that a poor person, interested in the education, but without the means or credit to pay a college $20,000 in tuition is prohibited from being an intern, but a kid from a wealthy family, or a student willing to take on a crushing debt, is allowed. Is that a moral law?

You are a union man, and your union represents you in your dealings with a large, faceless corporation. I have no doubt that your life is better for that union, and I do not begrudge you or your fellow union members. By way of contrast, my parents were predisposed to be anti-union because they had a friend who had been put out of business by organized labor demanding that he pay the same wages as his large, faceless, corporate competitors (who could pay better). And they were able to pay better because they were able to charge their customers more than if they had more competition. And, at least in that one case, the union was able to help their employer prevent competition from a “little guy.” I am afraid of the unintended consequences of my acts. Were those union organizers concerned about the unintended consequences of their acts as well? Does morality play a role in all this?

Even though my parents had an anti-union predisposition, they did not think in black-and-white terms. Indeed, my mother helped organize the union of librarians at Princeton University, where she worked. And my father, who was an artist, designed the logo for the union. They were proud of at least one union, but they did not support all unions, and they were vigilant in their concern that even the thing that they created might evolve into something they could no longer support.

My father gave me guidance on how to deal with the issues we’re discussing. His philosophy was founded in a morality based on the two questions with which I started this letter: 1) Am I treating others as I would want to be treated? and 2) What if everyone behaved this way?

He also told me, “Give yourself to a person, but not to a corporation, for a corporation has no soul.” He was not religious, and he did not mean a soul as in the thing that goes to heaven. He was referring to the ability to be empathetic. Corporations, although a “person” under the law, are incapable of empathy for they are not a person in fact. He did not mean that you could not give yourself to a person who happened to be running a corporation, particularly if that person was the owner of that corporation, and was bearing the responsibilities of ownership.

He felt that there was a point to wealth, and the point was not to treat yourself to more goodies. Wealth allowed you to afford to treat others better than you need be treated in return. It also allowed you to be the shock-absorber for people who can’t bear the ups and downs that life deals us all. If you are the owner of a company, then you are only entitled to what is left over after all is settled up. By this I mean that everyone else must be taken care of before you. Your customers must be happy or they will leave. Your employees must be happy because unhappy employees lead to unhappy customers. Your creditors must be paid or they will take you into bankruptcy court. You must be good for society or the law will put an end to you. You must make sure your managers orchestrate all this, for if they don’t, bad things will happen. You must keep your eye on the till, or everyone (including your “trusted” managers) will rob you blind. You must follow your conscience or you will not be able to sleep at night.

If you do all these things, success is still not assured. The windfall you receive in a good year needs to be saved for the hard times and then you will see your net worth dwindle as you try your best to keep your endeavor afloat. The more you spend on yourself, the less you have to absorb the shock for others. For my father, being an owner is essentially an unselfish proposition, for you must put the interests of everyone else ahead of your own. Wealth is not the spoil, but the soil, with which you grow an enterprise to serve the needs of others. Having personal wealth is like putting on your oxygen mask before helping your children… if you are gasping for breath you can be of little help to others.

Almost all the people I have met who sincerely share these beliefs are wealthy, or were until they lost their wealth by following their conscience. I have met people who will say they share my beliefs once they hear me express them. But how can they say that in all sincerity, if the first time they had the thoughts was when they heard the words from me? Besides, nobody knows what they truly believe until those beliefs are put to the test. Our actions reveal our beliefs, not our words.

But most corporate owners don’t follow my father’s advice. They own their companies through shares, often indirectly through pension funds that in turn own mutual funds. Even if they thought they had responsibilities as owners (and how many of them think they do), then there is not much of a mechanism for them to exercise influence. When shareholders intervene in corporate affairs, they usually do so in the name of “shareholder’s rights,” in other words, their own self-interest.

These shareholders do not have savings they liquidate to keep their companies afloat during hard times, to keep their employees employed, and their customers satisfied, at a time when continuing to do so erodes their net worth. Rather, they see their stock portfolios as if it were a savings account that they can liquidate when they want money to spend on themselves. It is hard to blame most of them. They are not wealthy. They are in no position to act as the shock absorber that my father described. If they are to be faulted for anything, it is for becoming shareholders in the first place without understanding what that means, or what their role needs to be if they want the endeavors they own to flourish.

I have not started No Shortage of Work to promote the exploitation of labor, be it day-labor, or college students paying tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of putting a corporate name on their resume.

Rather, I have started NSoW to show people that they can compete with those large faceless, soulless corporations run by owners who do not bear responsibility of ownership. I want small business owners who cannot make payroll due to no fault of their own to feel no shame in asking for help. I want students, and unemployed seniors alike, to feel free to offer their help to others. I believe that together they can get through hard times, and compete in the face of those behemoths that have legal departments who can design internship programs that skirt the minimum wage laws, at great expense to their interns.

I am not advocating exploitation of our fellow humans. I am suggesting that we are all in this thing we call life together, and we need to help each other out, particularly when times are tough. I do not want to impose my sense of what is right on others, but merely suggest it.

If you are considering taking my advice, and deciding to either work for another, or give work to another, without money compensation, I suggest you let your own conscience be your guide, not mine. Will you be able to sleep at night? If you want my advice on how to determine what unpaid work to accept, and what to reject, I recommend my father’s advice.  Are you committing yourself to a person or to a non-person? You are a human. Is there another human on the other side of your efforts who will have a hard time sleeping if they think they are exploiting you? If not, keep looking. You are setting yourself up for heartache.

If you are working for some inhuman organization that does not meet my father’s test, and you are doing so only because they are paying you, perhaps some of that pay is compensation for ignoring my father’s test. Should you be surprised if you have dedicated yourself to something inhuman when some day, in order to protect itself, it treats you in an inhuman way? What do you expect of things not human?

Is refusing to help your fellow humans during their time of need itself a selfish act? Is it a requirement that if you help another, you must take compensation in dollars rather than experience and skills gained?  If someone is attempting to create a profit-making business, does that condemn them to be unworthy of your consideration? It would be a sorry place indeed if we required all our needs to be met by a government or by altruists. I also posit that, during hard times, unemployed people will help themselves in terms of personal growth and improved skills by being of help others rather than by sitting home stewing in their own juices.

My father told me that in addition to giving yourself to another human with a conscience, you should dedicate yourself to your principles. With No Shortage of Work, I am trying to promote a set of principles. They are my principles and I would not want to force them on another.

Since you have very strong feelings about how people should treat each other, what the law should be, and what is moral and just, I would like you to review my stated principles. While I do not feel up to the task of changing society, or even its laws, I am certainly willing to change my principles. Indeed, I feel strongly that I (and everyone else) should state what they believe so as to open them up to inspection and criticism, and so that they might be called out as a hypocrite.

Below are the principles I am promoting. They are available for the world to see at: http://www.NoShortageOfWork.com/philosophy. They are in a formative stage, and so you should expect them to be amended. In fact, the point of this letter is to ask you to suggest your own changes.

I thank you for forcing me to reflect on what I am doing, and look forward to hearing from you soon.

With love and admiration,

Brooke

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