Just F#@k

[Content Note: Sexual harassment; worker exploitation.]

Venessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek: Unpaid Intern Is Ruled Not an 'Employee,' Not Protected From Sexual Harassment.

The intern alleging harassment, Lihuan Wang, filed a suit against [Phoenix Satellite Television U.S.] in January. According to the complaint, in early 2010, two weeks after Wang started working at the Chinese-language media company's New York office, her supervisor and bureau chief, Liu Zhengzhu, invited her and several co-workers to lunch. Wang claims Liu asked her to stay after the meal to discuss her work performance and then asked her to accompany him to his hotel so he could drop off a few things. In the hotel room, she alleges, Liu [sexually harassed and assaulted Wang].

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that because Wang was an unpaid intern, not an employee, she could not bring a claim under the New York City Human Rights Law. This discrepancy's not new: Unpaid interns aren't covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and while local laws can protect them, New York's state and city laws do not.

According to the court's decision, the New York City Council has had several opportunities to amend the law to protect unpaid interns but has declined to do so.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that NYC has a vast workforce of unpaid interns, hoping to jump-start careers, many of whom are working for some of the most entitled, privileged, unaccountable men in the world, who consider exploiting their female interns a perk of their positions.

Fix this shit, NYC. Jesus Jones.