As reported in ProfLERoy, a federal appeals court found last week that Fox Searchlight did not violate any wage laws by not paying Eric Glatt for a summer internship related to its production of Black Swan (Glatt worked as an accountant). The court found that the determination of whether an unpaid intern is an “employee” depends on whether the intern or the employer is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. Viewed as an employer-friendly ruling, the precedent was cited in a key ruling yesterday against UBS, a global wealth management firm. Background: The women in this photo are featured on a website that promotes internships at UBS. The program has the usual pitch about working as a UBS intern, but does not mention compensation. https://www.ubs.com/global/en/about_ubs/careers/graduate-and-intern/internships.html Yesterday, a federal district court kept alive a lawsuit in which a summer intern, Christopher Marshall, complained that he worked for three months without pay—receiving no academic credit, and no real training— while he did the actual work on an entry level employee (updating spreadsheets and cold-calling potential customers). His complaint alleges that UBS failed to pay wages in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL). Unpaid internships may not be kosher after all. (*Glatt refers to an ultra-strict form of kosher dietary laws.) The case is Marshall v. UBS.
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