Harper’s Bazaar Intern Sues Hearst for Unpaid Wages

 

A former intern for Harper’s Bazaar has filed a class action lawsuit against the magazine’s publisher, Hearst Corp., claiming Hearst violated federal law by hiring unpaid interns to do work that ordinarily would be performed by a paid employee.

Xuedan “Diana” Wang alleges in the wage and overtime lawsuit that she worked up to 55 hours per week, without pay, as an intern at Harper’s Bazaar last year. She claims that she and hundreds of other unpaid interns for the publisher should have been treated like any other employee under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), because if they weren’t doing the work, the company would have hired someone else to do it.

Wang is referring to one of the guidelines used by the U.S. Department of Labor for determining whether an intern is considered an employee who must be paid at least minimum wage and overtime under the FLSA:

“If the employer would have hired additional employees or required existing staff to work additional hours had the interns not performed the work, then the interns will be viewed as employees and entitled compensation.”

A spokesman for Hearst said the company has done nothing wrong, saying the internship programs at each of their magazines “are designed to enhance the educational experience of students who are receiving academic credit for their participation.”

Wang, however, took the internship – which offered academic credit – after graduating from Ohio State University in 2010.

 

A similar wage and overtime class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of unpaid interns working on the movie Black Swan. In that lawsuit, interns claimed it was illegal for Fox Searchlight Pictures not to pay them because they were not receiving college credit for their free labor.