What's the difference between a volunteer and an intern?

Quote:2014 was a very bad year indeed for Westover Winery of Castro Valley.

This was the year that a $115,000 fine from the state for using volunteers to help make the wine put the small-time vintner out of business, according to The Daily Review.

Westover used volunteers who were paid in job experience in winemaking, according to owner Bill Smyth. That may have been common practice at wineries before, but the killer fine from the state Department of Industrial Relations means that volunteer crushers are now a thing of the past, the newspaper reported.

Other wineries in the area who used volunteers have ended the practice, according to the newspaper.

Westover received fines in July for not paying minimum wage or workers' compensation insurance, the state told the newspaper.

It's not legal for a for-profit business to use volunteer labor. The winery, once open for ten hours a week, made $11,000 a year, Smyth told the newspaper.

Some of the "volunteers" took classes on winemaking Smyth offered, he told the newspaper.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Wes...25761.html

Yet another reason to leave California.

WTF? They made $11k per year and are fined $115k

More details in this link: http://www.mercurynews.com/my-town/ci_26...source=rss

Quote:There's just no money left. They've taken everything.

I sort of agree with limits to the types of work, and time spent, that can be done on an intern type basis.

Still, a lot of these experiences are invaluable and putting a dollar figure on it would be detrimental.

Manual labour on the other hand, that pretty much never works out to be fair or a good thing for interns etc.

We have interns during the summer constantly. I usually pay a flat fee for their time. They get more out of it than we do but a little token of our appreciation means it is easier for them to buy books or something in the coming semester.

(09-17-2014 12:14 PM)VA49er Wrote:  Yet another reason to leave California.

For nearly a century-and-a-half, California represented a kind of heaven-on-earth to Americans of all backgrounds and stations. It is almost impossible to describe the magnetism that the mere "idea" of California had on the US imagination, as expressed in literature and media. And the economic/demographic growth more than justified all the hype.

But over the past 20-25 years, California has witnessed a mass-exodus of middle-class families and small-business owners. Combine that with the fact that such people from other US states have, at the same time, overwhelmingly stopped migrating to California in the first place. And combine both of the above with the fact that California is still attracting significant #s of people who are not native to the United States and who have limited understanding (if any) of the English language and have little taxable income (if any). The resulting change -- in the span of barely one generation -- is truly staggering. For a while the evidence was mostly anecdotal or "too small" to notice. But in the last 5-10 years, the record has become so crushingly obvious that even most proponents of California's status-quo have stopped bothering to deny it.

(09-17-2014 02:27 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 12:14 PM)VA49er Wrote:  Yet another reason to leave California.

For nearly a century-and-a-half, California represented a kind of heaven-on-earth to Americans of all backgrounds and stations. It is almost impossible to describe the magnetism that the mere "idea" of California had on the US imagination, as expressed in literature and media. And the economic/demographic growth more than justified all the hype.

But over the past 20-25 years, California has witnessed a mass-exodus of middle-class families and small-business owners. Combine that with the fact that such people from other US states have, at the same time, overwhelmingly stopped migrating to California in the first place. And combine both of the above with the fact that California is still attracting significant #s of people who are not native to the United States and who have limited understanding (if any) of the English language and have little taxable income (if any). The resulting change -- in the span of barely one generation -- is truly staggering. For a while the evidence was mostly anecdotal or "too small" to notice. But in the last 5-10 years, the record has become so crushingly obvious that even most proponents of California's status-quo have stopped bothering to deny it.

My wife and I left California in 2011. My wife, a native born Californian, never experienced life outside of California except for vacations. But back in 2012, after living outside of that state for just ONE YEAR, she said she'd never go back and at that time we were living in El Paso which is not exactly a right leaning city (but compared to California it is)

This may in fact be a strategy by the Democrats to turn places like Texas blue. Businesses my leave CA for places like Texas, but so do their liberal nutjob employees.

I see a least two CA licenses plates each day. I can only imagine how many of them are infesting Texas.

Granted, many good, normal people also are leaving that place. Many of the California transplants don't plan on voting democrat in their new home.

You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back. AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

It wouldn't surprise me FO, if the other wineries did to that to force a shutdown.

I barter my services/products all the time.

I guess technically the state of California could deem
me a volunteer working for a for-profit business.

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back. AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

ahhhhh, somebody on this board CAN read between the lines....

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

I have no doubt that is true. It's still an act of the California state government that forced this small company out of business. Most people may not notice or care, but people who are thinking about starting a small business in California do.

Quote:The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back.

Well said. You omit to mention, however, that this "system" is hopelessly unsustainable. One day, it will break down. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when 80% of the people realize that they are on their own, and "Social Security" and "ObamaCare" and all the other rackets were just an empty bag used by some politicians to win elections.

Quote:AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

Anyone who has to submit an annual declaration of their economic activity to the taxman, and to cough up a % of their total income, and risk imprisonment if the taxman decides later that the declaration was inaccurate, is hardly "free".

One question, though: do you really think this plantation is "comfortable"?

The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom". This law basically says that one does not own their body. I can't think of a more abhorrently heinous law. Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom". This law basically says that one does not own their body. I can't think of a more abhorrently heinous law. Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

Probably just comes down to less taxes to the govt if one is a volunteer. It always comes down to taxes.

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom".

Welcome to California, 2014.

Quote:Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

That takes a lot of $$$$.

When is California falling into the ocean, you say?

(09-18-2014 11:15 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(09-18-2014 05:54 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  You can almost bet that the competing "wineries" used political clout to install this law. The article clear states that the other wineries in the area do not use volunteer labor.

I have no doubt that is true. It's still an act of the California state government that forced this small company out of business. Most people may not notice or care, but people who are thinking about starting a small business in California do.

Quote:The reason the government does not like "volunteer" labor is simple. It has already used the value of your future labor as collateral for its debts. It needs you to be making income so it can reap the tax revenue to pay those debts back.

Well said. You omit to mention, however, that this "system" is hopelessly unsustainable. One day, it will break down. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when 80% of the people realize that they are on their own, and "Social Security" and "ObamaCare" and all the other rackets were just an empty bag used by some politicians to win elections.

Quote:AND YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE? Another example of why we are just slaves on a comfortable plantation.

Anyone who has to submit an annual declaration of their economic activity to the taxman, and to cough up a % of their total income, and risk imprisonment if the taxman decides later that the declaration was inaccurate, is hardly "free".

One question, though: do you really think this plantation is "comfortable"?

Sure. It's subtle slavery. Most folks enjoy their lives and deal with it as necessary evil. That is why it continues unabated. We rarely stop to think(as you point out above) the sustainability of such a system.

(09-18-2014 11:20 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  The idea that one can not free donate their labor is so "anti freedom". This law basically says that one does not own their body. I can't think of a more abhorrently heinous law. Someone needs to mount a challenge to this insanity. I can't believe it could pass any test of Constitutionality.

what's that old sayin'......hindsight is......

(the failure) individual state gov't is only a cog in the machinery of our overall governmental system.....

look at it from the relative perspective regarding classes of life.....all like beings exist with themselves yet coexist with other life forms relative to geography and habitat....

our founding fathers whiffed that one in planning....

b/c they didn't know and this shite isn't natural.....

posted this once before.....global instantaneous communication will either be our undoing or the gift of the future....

all the bs people now see, read, talk about, blah blah blah, is nothing more that realizing the uncomfortable cultural imbalance with nowhere to hide....

no fkn way anyone on this board realizes the overall long term benefit based on how people post.....

just a macro tidbit from a "liberal, stoner, idiot, etc...." nut that is enjoying every drip off the leaf.....