Gawker Media LLC has begun filing documents in response to a lawsuit brought by a group of the site’s former unpaid interns, who claim they are entitled to back pay under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The suit, initially filed in a Manhattan federal court in June of last year, follows a similar, successful, claim by former Fox Searchlight interns who worked on the movie “Black Swan.”
Gawker’s attempt to block the suit comes in the form of signed affidavits, submitted to the court and obtained by PandoDaily, in which Gawker employees explain why it was perfectly reasonable to expect editorial interns to work without pay (and in some cases without so much as college credit). In short: the invaluable educational experience of working at Gawker should be reward enough.
Haven't seen hypocrisy of this caliber since the whole Ted Haggard thing. But seriously, this: One could justify any immoral, degrading behavior into which a victim is coerced (and thus not technically forced) by saying the exact same thing. And for the record, I do think that unpaid interns are victims of a coercive economic system. Those words were chosen not by accident.None of our internships were paid, and the interns understood that it was an unpaid position...None of the subsequent interns complained that they were not paid since they understood that it was an unpaid internship from the beginning…
Gawker is such a shit-stain place. God damn. The only place even slightly redeemable in that network is Lifehacker. And only slightly, because a lot of it is just Reddit Life-Pro-Tips that are reposted on their blog. They have all the stupidity of Upworthy articles, with an added dose of aggression and mis-reporting. Can't believe I made Kotaku my place for gaming news for so long. Blegh.
Not to defend Gawker but Carr is happily stretching some facts to make sure he gets his punchline, specifically this comment from one of the former interns in the depositions:I explain later in my statement how the initial internship helped kick off my career and taught me valuable lessons regarding the industry and how to be a professional... In other words, I actually enjoyed my time at Gawker Media
Edit to explain that my original comment was misguided and misdirected due to my annoyance over this getting a ton of media attention while many others are still getting screwed over and doing so unnoticed because other places don't have the presence of Gawker.
Yes, I did read the article. I did a bad job stating my thoughts. Yes, we're angry at Gawker about hypocrites but I guess I don't get it. All this outrage at the act of hypocrisy which is somehow on par with or worse than having unpaid interns in the first place? There's hypocrisy everywhere, I don't see how this is any different from other examples that you could pick out outside of the fact that this is being published. The fact that places like Gawker, Conde Nast, Universities/Colleges across the country, and the Government use unpaid interns should generate more discussion and outrage than the fact that one of these places happens to talk about it at the same time. Many college age students aren't fairly paid. It's not just unpaid internships. Many people with stipend pay positions on University campuses make well under the minimum wage, and I'm one of those people. These are the same people writing for campus publications about unpaid internships while making nothing or very little. But because they don't have a huge presence like Gawker there isn't as much outrage about it.
Agreed. As I said above, it's coercive and abusive.The fact that places like Gawker, Conde Nast, Universities/Colleges across the country, and the Government use unpaid interns should generate more discussion and outrage than the fact that one of these places happens to talk about it at the same time.
We agree then? I don't know what happened during that first comment, my latter one was what I had originally intended it do say but then word vomit happened.