Mina Farahmand, 21, who says the City Council fired her for organizing unpaid interns, filed a class action this week in Manhattan federal court under the Fair Labor Standards Act seeking $17 an hour for herself and potentially hundreds of other unpaid Council placements.

Mina Farahmand, 21, filed a class action in Manhattan federal court this week under the Fair Labor Standards Act, seeking $17 an hour — New York City's minimum wage — for herself and potentially hundreds of other unpaid interns the City Council has employed over the years.

Farahmand says the Council fired her from her unpaid internship after she organized fellow interns to demand compensation. Her campaign had called for $32 an hour; the federal lawsuit stakes out the statutory floor: the $17/hour that workers are owed under the FLSA if they are classified as employees. She has described the court filing as the next step in that effort to end what she calls the Council's use of uncompensated labor to run its legislative operation, according to amNY.

The threshold legal question is whether Council interns qualify as "employees" under the FLSA. Coverage of government-agency interns under the federal statute remains contested in federal courts, and the city is expected to challenge the classification. If interns are found to qualify, back wages at $17 an hour could extend to a class spanning multiple years of unpaid Council placements.

The Council has not publicly responded to the suit. The filing lands the same week fiscal watchdogs signaled support for an 18 percent pay raise for the Council's elected members.