Rashida Salaam, a former intern for Bad Boy Entertainment is filing a lawsuit with Bad Boy Entertainment after working an unpaid internship from January to May in 2012. Rashida thought the duties she made her do were unlawful and is making unpaid interns around the world wondering how her case is so different. The duties they made her do were things like answering telephones, getting lunch and coffee for paid employees, making deliveries, and decorating the office during holidays.
Rashida is taking advantage of how the internship has been transforming recently in entertainment. The interns that lashed out against Fox Searchlight Pictures in previous years as well as Columbia,Warner Music, Atlantic Records, and Sony entertainment companies that were all hit with class-action lawsuits earlier this year. These lawsuits paved the way for people like Rashida that are trying to get money out of these companies rather than moving up in the work force.
Something needs to change in the law about unpaid internships that says, “all internship duties must be deemed “educational” and companies must pay interns if they benefit from the work”, to keep the opportunity available for future interested employees. Where as the work place can change to make most things educational, I don’t think many people would be complaining about decorating an office or bringing coffee to insightful employees. There are thousands of unpaid interns that are going through far worse than Rashida has and in companies that are no where near that caliber. The caliber of the company entices people to try and get the money they think they deserve as well as more, even though they agreed to the unpaid internship.
Rashida kissed her chances goodbye in the entertainment business and will probably find difficulty finding a job opportunity, unless she is trying to become a lawyer.
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