Diddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment is being sued by a former unpaid intern, according to TMZ.com.
Rashida Salaam filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday (August 20) in Manhattan Federal Court, accusing the company and parent company Universal Music Group of violating minimum-wage laws, according to nydailynews.com.
“I’m not suing for any type of animosity,” the Brooklyn, New Yorker and City College graduate said yesterday (August 20), according to nydailynews.com. “I have no animosity against Bad Boy. But I was taken advantage of as far as wages go. I was naive.”
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Salaam’s lawsuit, which does not name Diddy specifically, seeks back wages plus interest for the hours she worked, as per nydailynews.com. Her suit estimates that more than 500 people have interned at Bad Boy since August 2007 and should be eligible to join her claim given that the statute of limitations for unpaid wages in New York is six years, according to nydailynews.com. Even though she was not paid for her internship, Salaam received a $40-a-week travel stipend for her commute, according to nydailynews.com.
Salaam says she took a job as an unpaid intern for Bad Boy Entertainment from January 2012 to May 2012 and had to answer telephones, get lunch and coffee for paid employees, make deliveries, gift-wrap presents and decorate the office during holidays, per TMZ.com.
When an intern is unpaid, “the primary recipient of the benefits should be the intern—not the company,” said Jeffrey Brown of Leeds Brown Law, the firm representing Salaam, as per nydailynews.com.
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There are six criteria that must be met in order for individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs to do so without compensation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
Those six criteria are: the internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment; the internship experience is for the benefit of the intern; the intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff; The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded; the intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship, as per dol.gov.
Neither Bad Boy Entertainment nor Universal Music Group has responded to the media regarding Salaam’s suit.
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