Do Employers Have to Pay Interns Overtime or Minimum Wage?

With summer approaching, employers are hearing from college students looking for internships.  在过去, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) made it almost impossible for “for profit” employers to establish unpaid internship programs that did not violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).  DOL使用了刚性, six-factor test that prohibited employers from gaining an immediate advantage from the intern’s activities, which severely limited the intern’s usefulness.

今年一月, the DOL discarded its six-factor test and adopted new standards coming out of the federal appellate courts. 新测试, referred to as the “primary beneficiary” test, recognizes that interns get valuable nonmonetary benefits from the internship relationship.  新测试 includes the following seven factors:

1. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
2. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
3. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
4. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, 而不是取代, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
5. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

不像之前的DOL测试, which required that all six factors be met, the primary beneficiary test is a flexible one where all of the factors are weighed together.  The sole consideration is whether the intern is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. 

Employers who are considering using unpaid interns should consider the following pointers:

1. Revise all intern-related documentation, including handbooks and recruiting materials, to use the language in the new test.
2. Both the employer and intern should sign an agreement that incorporates the language of the new test.
3. Ensure that the intern’s educational institution is overseeing the internship and that the work is primarily academic in nature.  Work with the college or university to get educational credit for the internship work, 在可能的情况下.
4. Do not assign much “grunt work.”  Focus on tailoring tasks to academic goals.
5. Set the duration of the internship before it begins.
6. Focus on training the intern with transferable skills, not just those unique to your business.

Of course, if an employer finds the new test to be too constraining, it can always pay its interns.

杰夫•威尔逊 是一个皇冠搏彩APP下载 & 皇冠线上买球平台 attorney focusing his practice on labor and employment law matters.