This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Labels & Publishers Top Stories
Letter to be sent to 3000 former Warner interns in ongoing lawsuit
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 15 May 2014
Over 3000 former Warner Music interns in the US will receive a letter informing them about a class action lawsuit being pursued against the major over its internship practices.
While in the UK the Inland Revenue has been cracking down on the use of unpaid interns in the music industry (except where work placements fulfil exemptions to minimum wage rules), in the US various former interns have gone legal on the matter. Warner Music is on the receiving end of at least two such lawsuits, the previously reported litigation being pursued by Justin Henry, and the case that’s in the news this week being led by Kyle Grant.
Many of the American cases going on just now which argue that full-time unpaid internships violate US employment laws are class actions, meaning that if they prevail anyone who completed a similar internship with the same company could also claim damages. Targeted employers are unsurprisingly trying to block said lawsuits from attaining class action status, arguing that everyone’s internship is different, and some may have fallen within ‘trainee exceptions’ allowed under the relevant laws.
But yesterday the judge hearing Grant’s case said that – while not commenting on the merits of the lawsuit itself – there was a sufficiently strong argument for court-authorised notices to be mailed to anyone else who may be eligible to join the class action, and that mailing will now take place. And although that’s just one small step for Grant’s legal team, lawyers for the former intern certainly seem to think that the decision adds credence to their wider case.
There are a number of similar internship cases currently going through the motions, most involving entertainment businesses, though not exclusively music. Those targeted will be watching the other cases closely, especially when it comes to judicial consideration on the definition of ‘internship’ and the reach of the ‘trainee exceptions’, though it is possible that some defendant companies, like the Elite Model Management firm has just done, might try to kill the dispute quicker and reach a settlement with former interns out of court.
