<prompt> Human: Just as a preface, let me know if this is better suited for rlegaladvice. Dont visit either sub much but need some help.Hey PF,As the title says, I am a 16 yo high school student in California. Over the summer I was offered the opportunity to do an unpaid internship at an architecture firm for two weeks. My boss was impressed with my performance and offered for me to do another couple weeks, then after school this school year, and a paid internship this coming summer. I am interested in a major in aerospace engineering or architecture in the future so it seemed like a perfect offer that I accepted.Let me explain some of the things I do and intricacies of my work. The owner and his wife run their own businesses but his wife is a major decision maker in what happens at the firm. Most of what I do is small projects for the architects such as 3D models or filling out forms. I enjoy this work and it helps me learn how to do common tasks in my field of interest. This job is invaluable to me and I would like to continue until college or a better opportunity arrises.The problem is that I recently found out that the owners wife is enforcing a policy that no high school interns would get paid, even during the summer. I will be doing some summer classes at my local community college that I really want to take and will help me take some senior classes in my junior year. It is a 20-30 minute drive from homework and I would have to go there 6 times a week plus my internship. This is obviously going to cost a lot of money for gas as well as paying for my car and its maintenance.I am currently enrolled in a work experience program through the community college because it came up that I needed to be getting credits for me to work unpaid. I was assigned a task by her yesterday that was to just go sweep the next to the business because they might have a legal duty to keep it clean. This is similar to most jobs she gives me, totally unrelated to what I am there to do. So according to California law, this could count as child labor because it is not under my job description but I am not 100 sure.So I practically need to have a paid position this summer, whether it is at the firm or I find a different job. It would be amazing for my transcript and would be much more enjoyable for me if I were to stay at the firm rather than bagging groceries. The architects who I work with are overworked so any help with projects I can give them is greatly appreciated. Her current reasoning is that there could be previous interns who could come back and try to sue or it would decrease initiative. A solution would be to properly implement a policy change and initiative would not be a problem, if anything there would be more. And if it is a money problem with me getting paid, at minimum wage last semester I would have been paid 13 the cost of what they paid to put in some backup storage that I could have done with my current computer knowledge for 300, so it shouldnt be that detrimental to the companys wallet. Is there any laws that say I must be paid, and whether there is or isnt, how should I approach her and ask for a change of policy?Let me know if more information is needed, which there probably is as this whole thing is very complicated.  <response>: Just tell them if they wont start paying you, youll be looking for paid employment elsewhere.Dont get too attached to jobsinternships. Theyll come and go. 