For those who have a brewery, arr you able to have volunteers in to work. Does it become a liability for the company? How about "internships" not associated with academia?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
It only becomes a liability if you don't already have the correct things set up. In my mind, before a stranger shows up to help you brew, the minimums you need set up are:
1) Payroll, you will want this person to be an employee, even if just for a day or two for a lot of reasons. The unpaid internship situation is getting a lot more federal attention too. Just add them to the payroll and pay them minimum wage for the day.
2) Workman's comp insurance, hopefully they don't get hurt, but if they do, you don't want to be liable for their injuries.
3) Commercial liability insurance, if this person accidentally blows up your brewery while helping or drops a shard of glass into a bottle while helping you bottle, you don't want to be liable for whatever happens after that if someone manages to drink the shard.
4) A reasonable waiver coupled with a non-disclosure agreement, the waiver part of this is a just-in-case. The non-disclosure agreement protects you. Ultimately it shows you took steps to protect your "trade secrets" in case this volunteer starts doing something un-dude-like with the knowledge you are sharing with them.
Even with these things set up, You need to use your best judgement and some of your gut feelings before bringing on random volunteers. I've had situations where volunteers accidentally switch around malt in a recipe, stand in front of the exhaust output from the heat exchanger, accidentally dump a few gallons of wort down the drain, get sprayed with wort, etc.