DOL Approves New Test For Unpaid Interns Offering The Potential Of Increased Flexibility For Employers

Originally published by Emily Harbison.

On January 5, 2018, the Department of Labor did away with its previous six-factor test and announced a new “primary beneficiary” test to determine whether interns and students working for “for-profit” employers are entitled to minimum wages and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers are required to pay employees for their work, but in some circumstances, interns may not actually be employees under the FLSA, and therefore, can be unpaid. The DOL stated that the new test “allows increased flexibility to holistically analyze internships on a case-by-case basis.”

The new “primary beneficiary” test looks at whether the intern or the employer is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. Several circuit courts, including the Second and Ninth, have previously favored the “primary beneficiary” test, viewing it as being more up to date and aligned with the underlying purpose of an unpaid internship.

 

The “primary beneficiary” test consists of the following seven factors and is described as a flexible test, with no single factor being determinative.

1. The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
5. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
6. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
7. 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.

The Bottom Line

It remains to be seen how the DOL will apply the new test, but this change should provide employers with more flexibility to have unpaid interns when the interns are the primary beneficiaries of their internships.

Please reach out to your Baker McKenzie lawyer for more details.

Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.

from Texas Bar Today http://ift.tt/2AJsxjQ
via Abogado Aly Website