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Brands & Merch Labels & Publishers Legal
Warner Music submits settlement over internships litigation
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 12 June 2015
Warner Music this week submitted papers to a federal court in Manhattan proposing a settlement to the previously reported class action lawsuit that claimed the US side of the music major broke employment laws by taking on unpaid or very low paid interns.
Part of a crackdown on unpaid internships that has occurred in the media and entertainment industries in both the US and the UK, two former Warner Music interns sued, with over 3000 former interns being subsequently contacted once the case became a class action.
Warner indicated that it planned to settle the 2014 litigation earlier this year, though terms of that settlement only became clear earlier this week. $4.2 million is set to be paid over, with people who interned at the company without pay as far back as 2007 set to receive some cash, likely to be equivalent to what their work would have earned at minimum wage.
According to Reuters, the deal is limited to 1135 claimants, which possibly relates to those who came forward when contacted last year. The deal also needs court approval to go ahead. Meanwhile the mini-major says: “We continue to stand by our internship programme as an invaluable educational experience for students looking to obtain hands-on, real-world training”.
