Two former interns filed a lawsuit against Condé Nast on Thursday, saying the company failed to pay them minimum wage at their summer jobs at W Magazine and The New Yorker, and asked that it be approved as a class-action suit.
Lauren Ballinger, who worked as an intern at W Magazine in 2009, and Matthew Leib, an intern at The New Yorker in 2009 and 2010, said in the suit that Condé Nast, which owns the magazines, paid them less than $1 an hour.
According to court papers filed Thursday morning in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Leib was paid $300 to $500 for each summer he worked. During that time, he was asked to review pieces for submission to the “Shouts and Murmurs” section and proofread and edit articles for the “Talk of the Town” section. Mr. Leib, a cartoonist, also helped maintain the online cartoon database, did research in the cartoon archives and coordinated the work of cartoon artists, the suit claims. He worked three days a week from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.
A Condé Nast spokeswoman said the company did not comment on litigation.
The case is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by interns for media companies who have sued for lack of payment. Juno Turner, the lawyer representing Ms. Ballinger and Mr. Leib, said her law firm, Outten Golden, settled a case against the “Charlie Rose” show last year. In February 2012, a former Harper’s Bazaar intern sued Hearst Magazines, asserting that she regularly worked 40 to 55 hours a week without being paid. Last July, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the plaintiff could move forward with her lawsuit as collective action that others could join voluntarily. But in May, that same judge ruled that the intern’s parallel claims under New York State’s wage laws could not proceed as a class action.
On Tuesday, a Federal District Court judge in Manhattan ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying two interns who worked on the film “Black Swan.”
Thursday’s lawsuit cited United States Labor Department guidelines, which consider unpaid internships lawful if they are part of an educational training program and do not replace employees and if the company does not gain immediate advantage from an intern’s work. The work experience also must benefit the intern.
Ms. Ballinger, a graduate of the American University of Paris, said in a phone interview that she saved one credit before graduating to use toward an internship at W. Ms. Ballinger was paid $12 a day to work in W’s accessories department. She said she worked from 8 or 9 a.m. each morning until 8 to 10 p.m. each night, packing, organizing and delivering accessories to editors. She later worked 10-hour days, three days a week, in W’s fine jewelry department, she said.
For both jobs, she said she was trained only by other interns. She said that even one of the editors at W marveled how poor their work conditions were.
The editor said the job was reminiscent of Anne Hathaway’s job in “The Devil Wears Prada,” but worse, “because we don’t get any makeover in the end,” Ms. Ballinger said in the interview.
Ms. Ballinger said she decided to get involved in a class-action lawsuit because W editors failed to give a recommendation to her university that she needed for course credit.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Leib graduated from Northwestern University and works for AD Lubow, an advertising agency. Ms. Ballinger, who graduated from the New School in January with a master’s degree in media studies, said she was currently looking for a job in digital brand strategy.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/business/media/two-ex-interns-sue-conde-nast-over-wages.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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