Lawsuit says interns 'crucial labour force' at Hearst
Xuedan Wang, 28, was an intern at the magazine's accessories department from August to December last year, where she typically worked at least 40 hours per week, and sometimes as much as 55 hours, without pay, according to her lawsuit.
"Unpaid interns are becoming the modern-day equivalent of entry level employees, except that employers are not paying them for the many hours they work," the lawsuit says.
"Employers' failure to compensate interns for their work, and the prevalence of the practice nationwide, curtails opportunities for employment, fosters class divisions between those who can afford to work for no wage and those who cannot, and indirectly contributes to rising unemployment."
The lawsuit contends that Wang, who also uses the first name Diana, and hundreds of other unpaid interns like her are a "crucial labour force" at Hearst.
"If the interns weren't doing the work then they would have to hire someone else to do it," Elizabeth Wagoner, one of Wang's lawyers, said in an interview — a sign, she said, that labour laws are being broken.
Wang and her lawyers hope to ask other people who have worked as unpaid interns for Hearst to join the class-action lawsuit. Wang is seeking minimum-wage pay and overtime pay in damages.
Wang, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., completed a degree in strategic communications at Ohio State University and took the internship because she wants to work in the fashion industry, her lawyer said. Wang was not available for comment, her lawyer said.
Paul Luthringer, a spokesman for Hearst, said the company had not been served with the lawsuit, and so could not comment.
According to information for prospective interns published on the Hearst careers website, the company does not pay its interns but instead offers them academic credit, a practice that is widespread among publishing companies and in other competitive industries.
"The goals of Hearst Magazines internships are to provide opportunities for students to gain valuable experience and exposure to the world of publishing," the company says on its careers website.
Under the United States Fair Labor Standards Act, a company may legally offer unpaid internships so long as they are educational and benefit the intern and not necessarily the employer, according to information published on the Department of Labor's website.
The department says that unpaid interns must not displace regular employees and that "the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded."
