This is like slave labor. Charlie would have been glad to pay them if he could have gotten a government handout for it.
Former Charlie Rose intern sues for pay
Free research, guest chaperoning and clean up for The Charlie Rose Show was ‘afoul of state wage and hour laws’: lawyer
By Barbara Ross AND Janon Fisher / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 7:01 PM
Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg
A former intern is suing Charlie Rose after working for him in 2007.
A former college intern for PBS interviewer Charlie Rose found out the hard way that talk is cheap.
Lucy Bickerton, a Weslyan University graduate, sued the hightone chatterbox on Wednesday, claiming she worked like a dog, but got stiffed on the pay.
She says she toiled away 25 hours a week from June to August 2007, researching for the host, putting press packets together, escorting the guests and cleaning up after the show.
Bickerton, who went into documentary filmmaking after she graduated in 2008, did everything an employee does except collect a paycheck, she says in the suit.
State law prohibits unpaid interns unless they are being trained and not performing in place of paid employees.
“The practice of classifying employees as ‘interns’ to avoid paying wages runs afoul of state wage and hour laws,” her lawyer Rachel Bien wrote in the complaint.
“Central to the show’s lean production are the substantial number of unpaid interns who work on The Charlie Rose Show each day, but are paid no wages,” Bickerton charges in the suit.
Under state and federal labor laws, she says she was entitled to at least a minimum wage of $6.75 to $7.15 an hour.
She says that Rose had at least 10 interns doing his bidding at the Lexington Avenue studio while she worked on the show, which is why her lawyers are seeking class action status.
Waggoner said her client sought legal advice after hearing that others who had worked for no pay as interns in the media industry had sued the Hearst and Fox organizations.
“She didn’t know she had any rights until then,” her lawyer Elizabeth Waggoner said.
Bickerton is traveling and couldn’t be reached for comment, Waggoner said.
Rose and his production company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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