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A 14-year-old in Albuquerque needs 20 service hours for a school club. She spends two Saturdays sorting cans at a food bank. Then a family friend offers her more hours 'volunteering' at his coffee shop: taking orders and wiping tables, no pay. Both feel like helping out. Under federal wage law, they are treated very differently, and the reason is who she is working for.
Who you can volunteer for
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA, the federal law on minimum wage and child labor) draws the line by type of organization. The U.S. Department of Labor says people who donate their time for public service, religious, or humanitarian goals are not employees of charitable or similar nonprofit groups. It says that in the vast majority of cases people can also volunteer for public agencies, like a city library or a parks department.
For-profit businesses are different. The Department of Labor says plainly that employees may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers. The food bank hours are fine. Taking orders at the coffee shop for free is, in general, unpaid work, even for a family friend.
Calling it volunteering does not settle it
In Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985), the U.S. Supreme Court held that people working in a religious nonprofit's commercial businesses were employees covered by the FLSA, even though they testified that they saw themselves as volunteers. The label did not matter. What mattered was that the work was ordinary business work.
So a nonprofit's thrift store or cafe can raise the same question a for-profit shop does. If the work looks like a regular job that brings in money, ask before you agree to do it free.
Internships and school credit
The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 71 says unpaid internships for public agencies and nonprofit charities, where the intern expects no pay, are generally allowed. At a for-profit company, an unpaid intern is legal only if the intern, not the company, is the 'primary beneficiary' (the one who gets the most out of it). Our article on unpaid internships explains that test.
School credit helps but does not decide it. Fact Sheet 71 lists credit, and whether the internship fits around the school calendar, as two factors among several. A company cannot turn a regular job into a legal unpaid one just by signing a credit form.
Before you start, ask two questions in writing: is this organization a nonprofit or government agency, and what will I learn that a regular employee would not be taught? Show the answers to your school counselor or a parent. If you think you were owed pay, the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division takes complaints at 1-866-487-9243.
Hãy nhớ điều này
- You can generally volunteer for nonprofits and government agencies without pay.
- The Department of Labor says employees may not volunteer for for-profit businesses, even a family friend's.
- Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985): the 'volunteer' label does not decide whether you are an employee.
- School credit is one factor for an unpaid internship, not a free pass; ask your counselor before you start.
Nguồn
- U.S. Dept. of Labor elaws: Volunteers under the FLSA (mở trong thẻ mới)
- U.S. Dept. of Labor: Fact Sheet 71, Internship programs under the FLSA (mở trong thẻ mới)
- Cornell LII: Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U.S. 290 (1985) (mở trong thẻ mới)
- U.S. Dept. of Labor: Fact Sheet 43, Child labor provisions for nonagricultural occupations (mở trong thẻ mới)
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