Wang v. Hearst Corporation: Unpaid Interns Denied Class Status

With the economy dragging and jobs difficult to come by, students who might otherwise have obtained paying jobs have increasingly turned to unpaid internships as a way to gain relevant experience and enhance their resumes. The distinction between individuals who perform work for their own benefit and therefore need not be paid, and "employees" (who are subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime requirements) can be blurry. Thus, it is not surprising that the increase in unpaid internships has led to more putative class actions by unpaid interns alleging their host companies used them as free labor to ride difficult economic times, in violation of state and federal wage and hour laws. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York recently issued an order in one such case, declining to certify a class of more than 3,000 unpaid interns at Hearst Corporation over the past six years.