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Second Circuit to Decide Challenges over Unpaid Interns

By Jeffrey Pollack
March 27, 2014

On March 11, 2002, this author urged private employers to “exercise caution in accepting unpaid work because any worker who cannot qualify as a volunteer intern/trainee is an employee entitled to the protection of the wage laws.” (NYLJ, March 11, 2002). Currently, there are a large number of companies facing lawsuits from current and/or former unpaid interns that should have taken that advice. In light of the decisions in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc., 293 F.R.D. 516 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) and Wang v. The Hearst Corp., 293 F.R.D. 489 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), the article herein updates readers about the law regarding the use of unpaid interns under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 USC 201 et seq., and, as an example of state law, New York Labor Law. 12 NYCRR 142-2.14 et seq.

For the most part, “[t]here is no permissible volunteering of services to a for-profit employer in the private sector. All work must be paid work.” The Fair Labor Standards Act (E. Kearns Ed.) BNA Books (1999) p. 95. This may come as a shock to the between one and two million people who serve as unpaid interns in the United States each year. See “Thirteen Depressing Facts about Unpaid Internships in America,” Business Insider, July 8, 2011 (available at http://read.bi/1ddkcby).

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