In a previous post, we noted that last fall NBCUniversal agreed to pay up to $6.4 million and this spring Viacom agreed to pay up to $7.2 million to settle class action lawsuits filed by former unpaid interns alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The unpaid interns in these and other cases have argued that their internship programs fail to meet the US Department of Labor’s six criteria for unpaid internships—see Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs under the FLSA. The six criteria derive from the US Supreme Court’s decision in Walling v. Portland Terminal Co., 330 U.S. 148 (1947).
 
At WeComply, a Thomson Reuters business compliance blog, Tiffany Robertson offers some practical tips—in fact, ten of them—for avoiding unpaid intern lawsuits.