Summer is almost here! Many companies hire high school or college students as summer interns. The company gets help for little or no pay and the student gets some great experience. If you do not intend to pay your interns, you need to meet the following six criteria under the Fair Labor Standards Act:
- The internship, even if it involves actual operation of your facilities, must be similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
- The internship experience must be for the benefit of the intern.
- The intern must work under close supervision of existing staff and must not be displacing another employee;
- You, the employer, cannot derive immediate advantage from your intern’s activities, and, on occasion, your operations, may even be somewhat impeded;
- The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job when the internship ends;
- Both you and the intern understand that the intern is NOT entitled to wages for time spent in the internship.
If your situation does not meet all of the above six criteria, then you must pay those students minimum wage plus overtime. Failure to do so could result in you in the same situation as Hearst, (owner of Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and other magazines) and Donna Karan International, among other prominent companies, who are facing or have faced lawsuits alleging wage and hour law violations.