To be fair, unpaid internships for college students are very common. And there is a trend that college students are required to intern with a company AFTER graduation before they are offered a "real" job.

Should Ivanka's company be on the forefront of bucking the trend? Yes, but let's not paint her as an isolated Scrooge taking advantage of interns and rubbing her hands with glee about all the money she is saving. It happens at many large companies.

Emphasis on not legal in New York City part of this paragraph;

Unpaid internships at for-profit companies are not legal in New York City, where Ivanka’s workers are based ― unless the positions are for college credit. And even then, there are a host of restrictions around how the job is structured. Regulations regarding unpaid interns at nonprofit organizations are slightly less strict.

Guess who else doesn't pay interns!

The Clinton Foundation’s interns do not get paid.

“The Clinton Foundation makes no promises or commitments of employment after the internship,” the Foundation says on its website. “No intern is entitled to a job at the conclusion of his/her internship experience.”

The foundation goes through about 100 interns each summer, with slightly less during the school year. Summer interns volunteer 30 to 40 hours a week, while interns who work during a college semester may work 25 hours. The most some interns receive is a $2,000 stipend for a four-month period, and that depends on financial need.

***

Hillary Clinton recently tweeted that her campaign is accepting student interns. Perks include, “free coffee, great views, and the chance to make history.”

How about salaries? Nope.

That’s right—internships at the Clinton campaign are just like internships at the Clinton Foundation: unpaid, according to The Week.

***

When Hillary announced her second run for the White House, I felt my passion for politics reignite. I quickly applied for and was offered a position as a Hillary for America fellow to work on the campaign. I couldn't have been more excited — until I was told I'd have to move to Nevada and work full time on my own dime.

I couldn't believe my ears. I did not apply as a routine volunteer but as a fellow. Its application process with an elaborate screening and interview process was now revealed to be an ugly lie. If Hillary hopes to inspire young people, to prove she understands our interests she should offer substance to earn our votes.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Unpaid work is common in campaigns, and as secretary of State, Hillary worked for the Obama administration. At the same time the administration was cracking down on unpaid internships in the private sector, it continued not paying the 300 annual interns in the White House.

That's what an INTERNSHIP is... unpaid work.

Technically. In reality, it is a slush fund for Clinton cronies, which certainly could afford to pay interns if it chose to do so...

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

Also, it is not clear in the article that the Ivanka interns don't get college credit or that any laws are being broken:

The company didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether those interns also leave with school credit or some other kind of reimbursement.

Beagles, those statements about the Clinton Foundation are untrue.

No. It's not.

After a week of being attacked for shady bookkeeping and questionable expenditures, the Clinton Foundation is fighting back. In a tweet posted last week, the Clinton Foundation claimed that 88 percent of its expenditures went “directly to [the foundation’s] life-changing work.”

There’s only one problem: that claim is demonstrably false. And it is false not according to some partisan spin on the numbers, but because the organization’s own tax filings contradict the claim.

In order for the 88 percent claim to be even remotely close to the truth, the words “directly” and “life-changing” have to mean something other than “directly” and “life-changing.” For example, the Clinton Foundation spent nearly $8.5 million–10 percent of all 2013 expenditures–on travel. Do plane tickets and hotel accommodations directly change lives? Nearly $4.8 million–5.6 percent of all expenditures–was spent on office supplies. Are ink cartridges and staplers “life-changing” commodities?

Those two categories alone comprise over 15 percent of all Clinton Foundation expenses in 2013, and we haven’t even examined other spending categories like employee fringe benefits ($3.7 million), IT costs ($2.1 million), rent ($4 million) or conferences and conventions ($9.2 million). Yet, the tax-exempt organization claimed in its tweet that no more than 12 percent of its expenditures went to these overhead expenses.

How can both claims be true? Easy: they’re not.

***

If you take a narrower, and more realistic, view of the tax-exempt group’s expenditures by excluding obvious overhead expenses and focusing on direct grants to charities and governments, the numbers look much worse. In 2013, for example, only 10 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s expenditures were for direct charitable grants. The amount it spent on charitable grants–$8.8 million–was dwarfed by the $17.2 million it cumulatively spent on travel, rent, and office supplies. Between 2011 and 2013, the organization spent only 9.9 percent of the $252 million it collected on direct charitable grants.

While some may claim that the Clinton Foundation does its charity by itself, rather than outsourcing to other organizations in the form of grants, there appears to be little evidence of that activity in 2013. In 2008, for example, the Clinton Foundation spent nearly $100 million purchasing and distributing medicine and working with its care partners. In 2009, the organization spent $126 million on pharmaceutical and care partner expenses. By 2011, those activities were virtually non-existent. The group spent nothing on pharmaceutical expenses and only $1.2 million on care partner expenses. In 2012 and 2013, the Clinton Foundation spent $0. In just a few short years, the Clinton’s primary philanthropic project transitioned from a massive player in global pharmaceutical distribution to a bloated travel agency and conference organizing business that just happened to be tax-exempt.

The Clinton Foundation announced last week that it would be refiling its tax returns for the last five years because it had improperly failed to disclose millions of dollars in donations from foreign sources while Hillary Clinton was serving as Secretary of State.

http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/27/in-2013-the-clinton-foundation-only-spent-10-percent-of-its-budget-on-charitable-grants/

Def. some apples to oranges comparisons there; as noted, nonprofits & programs offering college credit are handled differently under the law in NY.

And how do we know Ivanka's interns are not getting college credit, exactly?

I am quite sure that her organization probably has an HR department and lawyers. Are we to believe they are violating NY labor law and then openly tweeting about their labor law violation?

Besides, the NY guidelines indicate that one of the criteria for internships is: "The screening process for the internship program
is not the same as for employment, and does not appear to be for that purpose. The screening
only uses criteria relevant for admission to an
independent educational program."

It certainly seems that applicant for the Clinton campaign fellowship, as quoted in the USA Today article I posted, thought she was being screened for employment by the Clinton campaign before she discovered the fellowship would involve moving to Nevada and working full time on her own dime.

I'm no fan of the Trumps (or Clintons) but this is just a stupid hit piece.

It's not the company's decision if a student gets college credit for an internship, it's a decision made by the college. There are many issues with the current college intern culture and all this article manages to accomplish is to sensationalize the issue.

Also, if you look at the document you linked, it looks like the guidelines for interns at non-profits and for-profits are the same in NY.

* Not-for-profit organizations and institutions of
any type also may have unpaid interns, if they
meet all the criteria for an intern who is not in an
employment relationship. An employment relationship does not exist only
if the situation meets ALL of these criteria:

Here you are Beagles. As opposed to a conservative article. The bolding is mine and there is the entire article linked below, if you are interested. I need to learn to SOB on your partisan attacks.

Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”

That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.

Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”

“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).”

Craig Minassian, chief communications officer for the Clinton Foundation, said the Clinton Foundation is “an implementer.”

non-partisan fact checker source

The Federalist article addressed that claim by the allegedly "non-partisan" source regarding whether the Foundation is doing their own charity work. [Factcheck.org receives funding from the liberal Annenberg Foundation.]

You can look at the Clinton's own tax returns, as cited in the Federalist article, which disprove that the money is going to "programs" for their own charity work.

While some may claim that the Clinton Foundation does its charity by itself, rather than outsourcing to other organizations in the form of grants, there appears to be little evidence of that activity in 2013. In 2008, for example, the Clinton Foundation spent nearly $100 million purchasing and distributing medicine and working with its care partners. In 2009, the organization spent $126 million on pharmaceutical and care partner expenses. By 2011, those activities were virtually non-existent. The group spent nothing on pharmaceutical expenses and only $1.2 million on care partner expenses. In 2012 and 2013, the Clinton Foundation spent $0. In just a few short years, the Clinton’s primary philanthropic project transitioned from a massive player in global pharmaceutical distribution to a bloated travel agency and conference organizing business that just happened to be tax-exempt.

This isn't partisan. It's fact.

Okay, a couple more facts for you. Walter Annenberg lived close to us when I was growing up. He was a republican as was most of the Main Line back then, but probably would not be accepted in today's Republican Party. His foundation also supports PBS, animal welfare, environmental stewardship, and the Arts. They are non-partisan. I am done.

The Annenberg Foundation was originally founded by Walter J. Annenberg, a conservative who supported Ronald Reagan. However, when Walter Annenberg died, his family took over the management of the foundation and it took a turn to the far left and has ties to radical left individuals such as Bill Ayers.

Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, President Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.org.

The funding for Ayer’s projects was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.

FEC records also show, In March 2007, Wallis Annenberg personally donated $25,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

****

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has also given funding to FactCheck.org. Arnold is a Democrat and hosted fundraisers for President Obama.

***

All this is an aside anyway. The Clinton foundations own tax returns show how much is being spent on travel, rent, administrative costs, and staff salaries for Clintons and cronies like Blumenthal, who was taking around $10K a month in salary out of the foundation. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/clinton-foundation-sidney-blumenthal-salary-libya-118359

Just what exactly is the problem here? I did an internship in college, unpaid, and the experiences and networking I acquired from the time I interned were invaluable. IME, unpaid internships can actually be better than some entry level jobs. They are usually part of a program that provides meaningful experiences. No one put a gun to my head to enslave me when I interned...I knew exactly what I was getting into. It seems like people will twist anything these days.

Reiterating:

"Ivanka Trump, who markets herself as a champion of working women" has a post on her blog & Twitter page w/ advice from her interns on how to survive on an unpaid internship. Also mentioned is the fact that the most likely youths to take unpaid internships are those who have parents who can afford to support them.

Apparently the irony of this has been lost on a few people.....

Hey, wait a minute! I didn't get paid for my multiple internships in college.

Somebody owes me some real estate and a beast of burden, or something like that.

Harumph :-/

Apparently the irony of this has been lost on a few people.....

Let me practice my definition of irony by giving an example of it.

Irony: The same people who defend what President Bill Clinton did with a white house intern are now expressing concern over what Ivanka's doing with hers.

Irony?

Let me try again:

Clinton, champion of unemployed youth, became a bit of a hypocrite after a number of reports found her “Organizing Fellows” program to be not much more than full-time free labor from some of the most qualified aspiring young politicos in the country

Irony?

Not sure why it is somehow anti worker for Ivanka to offer voluntary internships which would look good on a resume, but whatevs.

carol - we get it. My issue is that this story is just a continuation of the tiresome, sensationalist nitpicking disguised as news that both sides indulge in. If there was a similar story about the other side that was light on facts and heavy on conjecture, I would feel the exact same way.

I did two internships in college and was paid for both; I also received college credit for one.

It's not that unusual to be paid for internships. Per the National Associate of Colleges and Employers, 77.7% of for-profit companies paid their interns, per this 2015 release.

http://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/student-internship-experience-climbs.aspx

For those who were paid or not paid as interns.

I share Again: Emphasis on not legal in New York City part of this paragraph;

"Unpaid internships at for-profit companies are not legal in New York City, where Ivanka’s workers are based ― unless the positions are for college credit. And even then, there are a host of restrictions around how the job is structured. Regulations regarding unpaid interns at nonprofit organizationsare slightly less strict."

FWIW, there has been a movement in recent years seeking better conditions & payment for interns. As stated in the article, about the only kids who can afford to work unpaid are those w/ affluent parents willing to support them.

OT, but...

Irony: The same people who defend what President Bill Clinton did with a white house intern are now expressing concern over what Ivanka's doing with hers.

Got to thinking...IF Hillary gets in the White House, I bet she will have to lay down the law with Bill about how to behave around interns. I'm not too sure I would trust him.

I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, and will not defend his reprehensible actions with Monica Lewinsky (or the slut shaming treatment the Clinton machine gave her post-incident, which is why I'll never vote for HRC, she was part and parcel of that disgusting exercise). However, equating what Bill did, which was to take personal advantage of a young subordinate, to Ivanka Trump taking professional advantage of several young people for the economic gain of her business, is an apples to oranges comparison. They are both in the wrong IMO, and yes, yes, a thousand times yes, what he did was inappropriate, foolish, denigrating to women and all of that, but I think it was happenstance, and that Bill didn't have a plan to boff an intern. But I do think Ivanka OK'd (or, less likely, dreamed up) a plan to "hire" free interns, and that, IMO, is why they are different and Ivanka's offense is worse, it was part of a strategy to take proffesional advantage of numerous young people. And her squad of advisors, lawyers and accountants should have properly advised her on NYS and NYC statutes, so her employees are either incompetent, ignorant or - and this is my guess - the culture of her company is to play fast and loose with the rules.

Gee, I wonder where that attitude came from?

What madilee posted about for-profits vs. non-profits internships and college credit.

Actually, if you look at that linked article on labor law, it doesn't actually SAY that college credit is required. The only place that college is mentioned is under criteria 1 which states:

The training, even though it includes actual
operation of the employer’s facilities, is similar to
training provided in an educational program.

The relevant portion about college credit is listed under FOR EXAMPLE: "A college, university, secondary school, specialist, technical, vocational or trade school oversees the program and awards educational credit."

However, this is just ONE possible example of a situation in which training would be similar to training provided in an educational program. There are other examples given as well. From that particular link, it does NOT appear college credit is REQUIRED but is instead one factor considered in determining whether the unpaid internship meets criteria #1 regarding the training being similar to training provided in an educational program.

It appears that article is either intentionally being misleading or is misinterpreting the law accidentally. A quick Google search reveals that unpaid internships are relatively common in NYC. For example, from NYU:

NYU confirmed changes to its internship listings in a statement emailed by James Devitt, deputy director for media relations, which notes “the majority of internships listed by NYU are paid or give academic credit” but that unpaid internships "are and have long been common in certain for-profit sectors of the economy—such as journalism, the arts, and the non-profit sector— and eliminating these internships from our listings would have two significant disadvantages: 1) it would put our students at a significant disadvantage as they enter the job market in these fields, and 2) it would eliminate our career services offices ability to try to ensure the quality of these internships.”

************

Second, the labor law article states:

Not-for-profit organizations and institutions of
any type also may have unpaid interns, if they
meet all the criteria for an intern who is not in an
employment relationship.

And the second linked-to labor law post regards VOLUNTEERS and states:

There is no section of the Labor Law that exempts “interns” at not-for-profit
organizations from the minimum wage
requirements.

The different criteria which is listed in the second labor law link is for VOLUNTEERS. The Clinton Foundation does not appear to be seeking VOLUNTEERS (who are in a different category and who don't have set time requirements they must commit) but instead states clearly that it is seeking INTERNS. Who work full work weeks. In which case, the requirements are the SAME as the requirements for For Profit businesses, and the same as applicable to Ivanka's business.

***

Also, perhaps Ivanka's interns ARE getting college credit. Again, I highly doubt that the company is violating labor laws and openly tweeting about that violation!

FWIW, article has been updated & expanded a bit since I first posted it...

If their unpaid interns were getting college credit, don't you think a NY co. (w/ any awareness of the PR ramifications) would be forthcoming about that?

& it seems Politifact has now weighed in on a Right wing talking point:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/25/reince-priebus/reince-priebus-false-claim-80-clinton-foundation-c/

Oh Beagles. I wish you wouldn't let your partisanship blind you to the facts. I'm no huge fan of either Clinton and I, too, have questions about mixing State Department business with Foundation functions. But the rest of this is just silly witch hunting.

Have you never served on a board or been passionately involved with the work of a nonprofit organization? Boards and key employees are comprised of a mix of people who have beneficial knowledge of the cause -- and people whose personal wealth and contacts can help the charity by attracting donors or influencing policy.

One of the things that can be confusing is the approach the Clinton Foundation takes to a lot of their charitable concerns. Instead of just gathering donations and then distributing them to nonprofits who do the work (like traditional foundations do) they do a lot of relationship facilitation. They bring together rich people and smart people and ask them to come up with ways to solve a problem.

That's why you don't see a lot of grant activity on their taxes. It's why you see a lot of travel expenses instead. If you really look for yourself at the Clinton 990 rather than relying on The Federalist or some other group with their own agenda, you can see how the money comes in and where it goes and the good it does.

Let me explain it another way. There is a group here in Indiana whose concern is raising the quality of life for youth in the state. They don't feed kids or provide school supplies or fund after school programs. What they do is bring stakeholders together to have conversations. They gather and share data. They assist the nonprofits who do the direct service work in becoming more efficient and effective. I doubt if you think that sounds like a "crooked" model of running a charity -- but, except for size and scope, it's the same method the Clinton Foundation favors. BTW, If you looked at the Indiana group's 990 you'd find a lot of salary expense and money spent for meetings, conventions and travel.

There are legitimate reasons for questioning the Clintons' ethics. This isn't one of them.

FWIW, I think unpaid internships that are time limited and connected with legitimate education providers (college or trade schools) have value whether they are offered by nonprofit or for profit organizations.

This is really not a partisan thing. I recognize that politicians I don't like, like Obama (who I think was damaging to the country), are basically good people and not unbelievably corrupt. Ironically, though, from my perspective, I would prefer to have Clinton as President than Obama b/c she's Machiavellian and corrupt and won't do anything to jeopardize her ability to hold on to power as long as possible, so she's more likely not to push the envelope with far left propositions like Obama, who I think actually has political convictions (unlike Clinton who stands for nothing).

The Clintons, unlike leftists who actually have ideological belief systems they care about, care about benefiting and enriching the Clintons. That's the entirety of their value system and any contributions they may happen to make to the world are secondary to enriching the Clintons and expanding their power. Th foundation is just an extension of that...

With all of the facts about the foundation, it is hard for me to picture anyone defending it, to be honest.

From their own tax returns, the foundation raised over $500 million from 2009-2012. More than $25 million went for travel expenses; almost $110 million for employee salaries and benefits; and $290 million for 'other expenses. Very odd that if these "other expenses" were actually going primarily to legitimate and honest charitable purposes, that there wouldn't be more detailed disclosures.

If you are running a charity, you don't pay millions for private jet travel or thousands of dollars a month to Clinton cronies like Sid Blumenthal ($10K a month for Sid b/c Clinton couldn't get him in at the state department and had to put her old family friend on the payroll somewhere).

When you look at even their own lists of what they actually DID, it amounts to very, very little. No way do these "initiatives" and "programs" they describe add up to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of charitable donations. And even their supposed "charitable initiatives" are rife with controversy. Take Haiti- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c2oBh1yDhc

In January 2015, there were protests outside of the Clinton Foundation for wasting billions and awarding contracts to non-Haitian companies.The activists also said Haiti as a cover for foreign governments to funnel kickbacks of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation

Potesters at the Foundation's Harlem offices say the money was wildly mismanaged and did not provide the relief Haitians desperately needed.

"Only 900 homes were built, and they were not even built in the area where the earthquake took place," said Ricot Dupuy of Radio Soleil. "So much inconsistency, so much irregularity."

This is not even getting into the sketchy donations from foreign governments and people with business before the state department and the accusations of pay-for-play. Millions from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with HORRIBLE records on women's rights as Clinton proclaims herself to be for women and children.

The there was the uranium deal.... In 2010 the State Department approved a move by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom to purchase a Canadian mining company with uranium mineral rights on US soil after a bank with ties to the Russian company paid Mr Clinton $500,000 for a speaking engagement in Moscow. The Canadian company in question was founded by million-dollar foundation donor Frank Giustra. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32441222 

Or how about when Clinton's State Department approved of "$165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation," including "Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar," according to International Business Times- http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

Or when the Clinton Foundation admits breaking ethical rules by taking money from Algeria. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/11437994/Clinton-Foundation-admits-breaking-ethical-rules-by-taking-money-from-Algeria.html 

Or reports that: "More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president." http://bigstory.ap.org/article/82df550e1ec646098b434f7d5771f625/many-donors-clinton-foundation-met-her-state

Let me see if I have this straight.....

The Republicans are trying to arm US citizens, and the Clintons are trying to arm the rest of the world??