Opinion ID: 2924505
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The training, even though it includes actual

Text: operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school. 17 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 18 of 32 2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees or students. 3. The trainees or students do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation. 4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees or students, and on occasion his/her operations may actually be impeded. 5. The trainees or students are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period. 6. The employer and the trainees or students understand that the trainees or students are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training. Id. (emphasis in original). The Students assert that we should defer to this guidance, but we respectfully disagree. Just as it is clear that the Handbook refers to Portland Terminal in its introduction to the six factors it sets forth, it is equally plain from reviewing the six factors that the Handbook derived them by simply reducing the facts of Portland Terminal to a test. This test is not a regulation, and it did not arise as a result of rule-making or an adversarial process. At most, it is entitled to Skidmore deference, meaning that the deference it is due is “proportional to its ‘power to persuade.’” See United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 235, 121 S. Ct. 2164, 2175-76 (citing Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140, 65 S. Ct. 161, 164 (1944)). We do not defer to this test because, with all due respect to the DOL and the important work that it does, we do not find it persuasive. First, “an agency has no 18 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 19 of 32 special competence or role in interpreting a judicial decision.” Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc., 791 F3d 376, 383 (2d Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). Second, as the Second Circuit has observed, the test “attempts to fit Portland Terminal’s particular facts to all workplaces, and . . . is too rigid . . . .” Id. Third, while some circuits have given some deference to the test, no circuit has adopted it wholesale and has deferred to the test’s requirement that “all” factors be met for a trainee not to qualify as an “employee” under the FLSA. In short, we prefer to take our guidance on this issue directly from Portland Terminal and not from the DOL’s interpretation of it.