That's not always how it works. Besides, who has time to bust their ass like they're getting a paycheck when they aren't being paid? Experience doesn't pay the rent.

"experience doesn't pay the rent" okay well then why join internships in the first place then?

cause it is required i guess

It's not illegal. The boss can argue that he's trying to give him exp. and not make him "slave labor".

35-For extended periods of time, yes it is illegal. The point of an unpaid internship is to learn and maybe working for a few days like a job is okay, but if it's one job for too long then it's not really legal.

#35 experience always pays back.

That depends on how well you get along with your boss. For instance, for the past three years, I've been the only (and I mean only) employee under my current boss, and I've been denied two better-paying government jobs so far this year, just because he continually gives bad references for the slave labor he calls my work. Since I'm a lab technician/IT assistant/field associate/secretary/business associate/HR director, there's no one else potential employers can talk to about the quality of my work other than my boss, so I'm essentially screwed from finding any other jobs in my career field, even though I have the necessary experience. Even if I were to quit, it wouldn't change my boss's attitude when speaking with employers, so I'm stuck in an endless loop of underpaid, overworked job experience with no valuable references. Experience can sometimes mean moot if your employer/sole coworker is a big enough jerk. A word of advice, OP: be extremely wary of small companies, especially when you can count the number of current employees on one hand.