Earlier this week, Warner Music Group received some very unsettling and possibly damaging news. A humungous class-action lawsuit was approved by a federal judge in New York. The worst part is that the lawsuit involves over 3,000 interns who worked with WMG who filed it last June. The lawsuit accuses Warner Music Group of violating the minimum wage requirements, breaching the overtime requirements, and infringing the Fair Labor Standard Act.
Ex-intern Kyle Grant sparked the lawsuit and continues to call out Warner Music Group for a variety of abuses he and over 3,000 colleagues allegedly faced while volunteering for them with intern positions. The lawsuit is also claiming that the interns working in most of the subsidiaries of WMG were subject to tedious coffee and lunch runs for paid employees. Although a coffee run here and there is not an evil thing to ask an intern to do, that’s not what an intern is solely for. According to federal law, an internship must meet “educational and vocational” standards for volunteers. The complaint alleges several unprofessional odd-jobs that went overboard in the following statement:
“During the Plaintiffs term of employment, his duties primarily consisted of answering telephones, making photocopies, making deliveries, creating lists, preparing coffee, getting lunch for paid employees, running personal errands for paid employees, and other similar duties. Defendants did not provide academic or vocational training to Plaintiff members of the putative collective.”
If you want to know more about the formal complaint and lawsuit, check it out here. Warner Music Group faces one of the biggest problems and if things go south, they will have to make major administrative changes, change intern-employment policies, and lose millions of dollars in the process.
Source: DigitalMusicNews