![]() After that decision, the Department of Labor issued guidelines for employers who wish to employ unpaid interns. The six factors that employers must follow when hiring unpaid interns stem from the 1947 Supreme Court decision in Walling v. The guidance goes on to explain that if the interns are engaged in “productive work,” such as filing or assisting customers, they will not be excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because the employer is actually benefiting from the interns’ work. The plaintiffs allege that they wrote, researched, edited, and promoted content on social media, and seek unpaid wages and overtime in return for their hard work.Īccording to guidance issued by the United States Department of Labor, the more an internship program resembles an educational or academic program, the more likely it is to be classified as an extension of the intern’s educational experience. The plaintiffs are three unpaid interns that claim that they spent 15 hours a week working on blogs that “generate significant amounts of revenue for Gawker.” The lawsuit comes on the heels of a decision against Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc. As discussed in an earlier post in this blog, federal law sets out a number of factors that are used to determine whether an internship is in compliance with federal labor laws.Īccording to a report published by, Gawker Media has joined the ranks of several high-profile companies that have been sued by interns for alleged violations of federal labor law. Employers are subject to both federal and state wage and hour laws, and noncompliance with these regulations can result in significant sanctions. While at first glance unpaid internships may seem like a win-win for everyone involved, several recent cases have highlighted how employers can take advantage of interns in an attempt to obtain free labor. ![]() Employers are certainly happy to have additional unpaid help, and students and other job-seekers find these positions desirable in order to add additional experience to their resumes. Eventually, it was brought down over a sex tape lawsuit filed by wrestler Hulk Hogan, with financial help from Silicon Valley financier and frequent Gawker foil Peter Thiel.The economic downturn of recent years has led to an increase in the number of unpaid internships being offered. However, it also drew criticism for publishing personal information about minor celebrities and other scurrilous stories of questionable public interest. The site was among the first to publish important stories about sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby long before others did. It certainly has the makings of an interesting series, given Gawker’s colorful history. Scraper is now being shopped to other distributors, according to the report. On top of that, Gawker publication Gizmodo famously got hold of an iPhone 4 in 2010, drawing the wrath of Steve Jobs and leading to a police raid on an editor’s home. While he was still second-in-command to Steve Jobs, Gawker outed Cook in 2008, six years before he wrote that he was “ proud to be gay.”. ![]() It’s surprising that Apple TV+ even considered the project considering the company’s history with Gawker. Now, the show is gone from Apple TV+, while the Apple executive who brought it in, Layne Eskridge, has also left the company. Then, Cook found out and via an email, “expressed a distinctly negative view toward Gawker,” sources told the NY Times. Apple TV+ was supposedly working with former Gawker writers on the dramedy earlier this year. Apple+ TV killed a show called Scraper about the rise of Gawker Media after CEO Tim Cook personally weighed in, according to a report in the New York Times. ![]()
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