The unpaid-interns ruckus continues to unfold, this time in a
way that entangles President Obama.
As we many have observed, an unpaid White House intern might
conclude that he or she is "engaged in the operations of the
employer or . . . performing productive work,"
activities which the U.S. Labor Department says would be viewed as
federal Fair Labor Standards Act employment where a business is
concerned. Although another federal law says that the rights and
protections of the FLSA apply to "covered employees" in
presidential offices, the drafters expressly excluded interns.
But now a movement referring to itself as the "FairPay
Campaign" has launched a petition "call[ing] on the White
House to pay the interns it employs an hourly wage." The
group's approach appears to be to cajole and shame President
Obama into doing so, including by asserting that not paying the
interns would be hypocritical in light of his call for an increase
in the FLSA's minimum-wage rate. A
