Employment Matters Blog - A blog about current developments & issues in employment, labor & benefits law

By Martha J. Zackin

On June 11, in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc.., the US District Court for the Southern District of New York held that unpaid interns who worked for on the movie “Black Swan” had been improperly classified, and were entitled to pay for all hours work.  Focusing on the six factors delineated in the DOL fact sheet, discussed here, the Court found that the interns worked on the same tasks and in the same manner “as paid employees work, providing an immediate advantage to their employer and performing low-level tasks not requiring specialized training.”  Further, the Court stated, “[t]he benefits they may have received … are the results of simply having worked as any other employee works, not of internships designed to be uniquely educational to the interns and of little utility to the employer.”  In other words, “[t]hey received nothing approximating the education they would receive in an academic setting or vocational school.”

The Court also found that the corporate parent of the production company for which the interns directly worked was a “joint employer” with the production company, for purposes of the FLSA.  As a result, the parent corporation was jointly liable with the production company for payment of wages.

Whether a particular position qualifies as an unpaid internship under the law is a fact-specific inquiry, and errors in classification can be very costly. To avoid these errors, please contact your employment counsel for help.

By Alden J. Bianchi

The Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules will require large employers (50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees) to make an offer of minimum essential coverage to at least 95% of their full-time employees or pay a non-deductible excise tax on all their full-time employees. Because the excise tax payments are determined month-by-month, it is not possible to know for certain whether coverage must be offered to any particular employee because of his or her full-time status until the end of a month. Recognizing that this presents something of a Catch-22, the regulators have proposed an alternative means of determining full-time status of certain employees called the “look-back measurement period method.”

For more, click here.

By Michael S. Arnold

This is just a friendly reminder that New York City’s new law prohibiting discrimination based on an individual’s current unemployment status is set to become effective next week, June 11, 2013.  Employers: if you have not done so already, we strongly encourage you to take steps immediately to reduce your potential exposure once the law does go into effect.  Attorneys from Mintz Levin’s New York Labor, Employment & Benefits Practice are also standing by to provide assistance.  Our complete post regarding this new law is available here. 

By Michael S. Arnold

As expected, the New York City Council has passed the Earned Sick Time Act, which, if enacted, will require most City employers to provide job-protected sick leave, whether paid or unpaid, to the more than 1.6 million employees who currently do not receive this benefit.  As with the recently-passed unemployment discrimination law, the Earned Sick Time Act passed with an overwhelming majority and we expect the Council to override any Mayoral veto. 

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By Martha J. Zackin

A majority of US employers offer some sort of wellness program designed to reduce the cost of health insurance and healthcare costs, and to improve the health and well-being of employees.  However, unless care is taken, even well-intentioned wellness programs may violate federal law.

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