Volunteering Advice at a Local Brewery

I would think you were a spy from another brewery...lol Can't you sign a waver for the liability part and who the heck would say training someone who would work for free is a hassle.

 

I work at a brewery and volunteer at two more. I started out with greet beer tasting knowledge, but little in the ways of massive brewing capabilities. I'd home brewed quite a bit, but I feel like he two are quite different. You should be fine going in with just some enthusiasm. Have fun!

 

Since you have a bit of homebrew background at least you have the ability to ask intelligent questions, so don't be afraid to do that. Also, don't feel like you need to impress anyone, and stay until everyone is finished. Cleaning up is the biggest pain, but also the easiest to "help" with.

 

Internships are the new paid jobs.

 

can't be hard to train a guy to sweep/mop and carry bags/buckets

 

Smaller breweries around my area look for volunteers all the time, so I don't understand any negativism either. Can't comment from personal experience, but the only requirements seem to be enthusiasm and willingness to pitch in - no, not the yeast - on the menial tasks. Lots put calls out for help on bottling days, especially if they are hand-filling.

 

Volunteer? Hell no.
Work for booze.

 

Well, for one thing, it is a violation of Federal labor law:

Brewers Association officials are always noting how many jobs their member breweries have created (neglecting to mention all the part-time and less-than-minimum-wage tipped employees their figures contain, compared to the traditionally well-paid industrial brewery workers). Creating "volunteer" positions in a for-profit business - that specializes in higher priced good, no less - is even worse.

It also keeps the paid employees' wages artificially low, since it is hard to compete with $0/hr labor, and harder still to ask for that 50¢/hr raise when Jimmy over there works for free. (And, no, he's not a legal "intern" either).

 

Good questions to ask the brewery

 

At a for-profit brewery? You are an intern, not a volunteer. The local soup kitchen or public radio station could always use an extra hand.

 

Of course, but...

---the acting Director of Wage & Hour Division, US Labor Dept.,​

quoted in The New York Times (2010) - includes a link to the DoL pdf with their six criteria for unpaid internships like these two which probably eliminate most brewery "interns":

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JK - I agree with that 100%. Thanks for making that point and adding value to the discussion. And for changing my thinking, as well. We always talk about "big beer" when it comes to questionable practices, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside"

Volunteering would certainly be a way to drive wages, benefits, and opportunities down while increasing profit. As soon as you're licensed and selling, you are not having a home brew day with your buddies anymore and the paradigm shifts. I completely understand why this is a big deal now.

So with these very small outfits (ones I have heard about using "volunteers" or "friends" as "helpers"), I imagine it more or less escapes notice? Hell, even my company pays interns

 

I understand the desire to help out with something you love, but any place worth the effort should pay you at least minimum wage for helping out. Your time is worth the money.

 

This + what some others have said. If you can turn it into some kind of short-term internship, great. But how would you feel if you worked at a company, maybe even been there for a few years, and then learned that some of your new "co-workers" were giving their labor away for free? Think you'd be very optimistic about getting a raise?

 

Exactly. And the fact that college grads are strongly encouraged to find unpaid internships all the time is pretty despicable, when it's clearly against the law in most situations. Those companies are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

Cali has laws against this. If serious work is being done they have to be paid

 

Legally they have to pay you. Not just California.. It's federal law.

 

I'd be willing to bet you could bluff your way to doing a fine job armed as you are.

 

You certainly can volunteer at a for profit company if you choose to do so. You cannot volunteer, by law, as an employee of a company. This means you "volunteer" to work over off the clock.

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp