Sparks fly in the latest news that comes from Sony Music and Columbia Records, who are under fire by a class-action lawsuit filed by a former intern who says she, and over 500 other interns, were “unfairly paid.”
“…The complaint by Britt’ni Fields, filed in New York Supreme Court, is similar to those of many interns nationwide since Federal Judge William Pauley’s landmark June ruling in favor of former Fox Searchlight interns who claimed the production company violated overtime and minimum wage laws. The decision has triggered a deluge of recent lawsuits by unpaid interns, the defendants including NBCUniversal, Condé Nast and Gawker.
But Fields’ suit most closely resembles the two other intern lawsuits currently targeting the music industry — one filed by Justin Henry and another by Kyle Grant, both against their former employers Warner Music and Atlantic Records. Both are class-action suits — Henry’s for 100 individuals and Grant’s for 1,000 — and both plaintiffs are represented by Virginia & Ambinder and Leeds Brown, who also represent Fields.
Fields’s workday, she claims, was spent answering phones, making copies, sending mail and “other similar duties” that “did not provide academic or vocational training” to her or others in her proposed class. Columbia benefited from her work and “would have hired additional employees or required staff to work additional hours” had Fields and other unpaid interns not been hired.
That made her an employee and entitled to compensation, she argues, according to New York labor laws and the Fair Labor Standards Act. For a position to be an unpaid internship, the legal criteria include that “the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern” and “the intern does not displace regular employees.”
She is suing to receive wages for her internship hours, plus punitive damages for Sony and Columbia’s failure to pay those wages initially. Unlike many litigating interns, her three-day workweek did not exceed 40 hours, so she has not sued for overtime compensation…”
