{"id":879924,"date":"2026-06-20T06:17:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T06:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/879924\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T06:17:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T06:17:31","slug":"nyc-council-intern-claims-she-was-dismissed-from-unpaid-gig-after-demanding-32-per-hour-pay-for-her-and-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/879924\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council intern claims she was dismissed from unpaid gig after demanding $32 per hour pay for her and peers"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unpaid City Council intern claimed she was axed after demanding she and her peers be paid $32 per hour \u2014 nearly twice the Big Apple\u2019s current minimum wage.<\/p>\n

Mina Farahmand, a legislative intern for Manhattan Councilman Harvey Epstein\u2019s office, said she was given the boot Wednesday after she sent Council Speaker Julie Menin a petition signed by 32 of her peers seeking \u201ca living wage,\u201d City & State reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mina Farahmand said she lost her job this week after she began a campaign to ensure interns are paid. X\/minafarahmand05<\/p>\n

\u201cI got fired from @NYCCouncil for organizing as an unpaid intern yesterday after I sent a petition to the Speaker Tuesday to pay all interns,\u201d Farahmand said in an X post Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n

The petition called \u201cfor the creation of a dedicated fund to ensure all unpaid interns who work in council members\u2019 offices could be paid a living wage of $32 an hour,\u201d City & State reported in its newsletter, Heard About Town.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s hourly minimum wage is about half of that at $17 \u2013 though lefty council members earlier this year proposed increasing it to $30 an hour.<\/a><\/p>\n

Farahmand, a New York University graduate, according to her LinkedIn, said she had also confronted Menin at a Youth Civic Summit on Monday to ask her to back the salaries, the outlet reported.<\/p>\n

A top staffer in Epstein\u2019s office then informed her later this week that her \u201cvolunteer\u201d position was over, even though she was supposed to work in the office through July, she claimed.<\/p>\n

The union that represents council workers said in a statement<\/a> it wanted a \u201cfair and thorough review of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaker Julie Menin William Farrington for The NY Post<\/p>\n

Menin\u2019s office said in a statement to The Post Friday it \u201cwas already reviewing policies for internships within Council Member offices, and those conversations are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned by reports that NYC Council intern Mina Farahmand was terminated from Council Member Harvey Epstein\u2019s office after publicly advocating for increased funding and improved conditions for interns,\u201d the executive board of the Association of Legislative Employees.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryone should be able to speak up and advocates for themselves without fear of retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decisions about hiring and letting go of interns are made at the discretion of individual council members, a source noted.<\/p>\n

A senior staffer in Epstein\u2019s office claimed to The Post that Farahmand was not terminated because of the letter, but declined to give further details.<\/p>\n

Councilman Harvey Epstein Erik Pendzich\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Farahmand didn\u2019t say why she had accepted the unpaid position, but told The Post in a statement: \u201cAll Council Members, Council interns and Council staff I have spoken to on this matter have agreed that the unpaid internships do not work for working people. <\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we can work collaboratively to create a robust, paid internship program at City Council in this year\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also shared a screengrab of the City & State item on X and added in a comment that while the Council\u2019s \u201ccaucus interns\u201d are paid that hourly sum,\u00a0some legislative ones are not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unpaid City Council intern claimed she was axed after demanding she and her peers be paid $32…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":879925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5310,32224,175377,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,357542,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-879924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-city-council","tag-internships","tag-julie-menin","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-unpaid-internships","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116780980590287847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}