Unpaid Interns Should Have Been Paid

July 17, 2013 by Andrew Baker

A federal district court in New York recently declared that Fox Searchlight Pictures should have been paying wages to their unpaid interns. Eric Glatt, who arrived at Fox Searchlight with an M.B.A., was an intern on the set of Black Swan alongside Alexander Footman, a Wesleyan film studies graduate. During production and post-production of Black Swan, the interns performed menial chores for Fox Searchlight such as organizing filing cabinets, assembling office furniture, taking lunch orders, delivering paychecks, taking out the trash, tracking purchase orders, and answering phones.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides employees with minimum wage and overtime protections. Whether an individual is an “employee” under the Fair Labor Standards Act is determined on a “case-by-case basis by review of the totality of the circumstances” and interns constitute a narrow exception to the FLSA requirements. Relying on guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Labor for for-profit businesses (http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm) , the court found that Fox Searchlight did not satisfy five of the six suggested criteria for establishing an internship relationship. Fox Searchlight was the beneficiary of the internship experience rather than the interns, the corporation obtained immediate advantage from the plaintiffs’ work, Fox Searchlight did not provide interns with educational training, and the experience did not entitle plaintiffs to a job after the internship. Although the interns understood they would not be paid, their work displaced regular workers. Under the totality of the circumstances, the court found that Fox Searchlight had misclassified Glatt and Footman as unpaid interns and held in favor of the plaintiffs.

Beeson, Tayer & Bodine is an Oakland and Sacramento based law firm. We are a small, dynamic firm and work closely with our clients with the goal to improve the lives of the working people.  Among other areas, we offer assistance in employment law, including representation of individual employees in discrimination and harassment issues.

The material on this website is provided by Beeson, Tayer & Bodine for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult with their own legal counsel before acting on any of the information presented. Some of the articles are updated periodically, and are marked with the date of the last update. Again, readers should consult with their own legal counsel for the most current information and to obtain professional advice before acting on any of the information presented.