In the ongoing battle between U.S. Soccer and the U.S. Women’s National Team regarding the team receiving equal pay compared to the USMNT, U.S. Soccer has filed a motion to have the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to dismiss the USWNT’s equal wage complaint against them.
This complaint was put forth by five top USWNT players arguing that they are getting paid four times less than the male players as well as experiencing various wage differences between the two genders.
U.S. Soccer is asking the EEOC to dismiss the complaint because they claim “there is no evidence U.S. Soccer is acting with a “discriminatory motive” or is in violation of law.” That doesn’t mean U.S. Soccer is completely cold when it comes to making sure they give the USWNT what they feel is a fair wage. In the statement to the EEOC, U.S. Soccer claimed, “The suggestion that U.S. Soccer has been anything other than strongly supportive of the WNT is deeply disappointing and inaccurate.”
Depending on what you look at, that is somewhat true and explains why this is so tough to determine if the USWNT is fairly being paid. USWNT players receive a base pay that the USMNT players don’t receive. In exchange, USMNT players have more access to higher bonuses and with that, can make more money than USWNT players.
Some differences in pay such as per diem ($50 for women, $62.50 for men) and sponsor appearances ($3,000 for women, $3,750 for men) really doesn’t apply to on field play and thus should be equal but after that, it gets into a sort of gray area that depending on the information you are looking at, can make the argument for either side. For instance, the USWNT will argue that the top USWNT players are being paid less than the top USMNT players and that is true. U.S. Soccer will argue that the 30th highest paid USMNT player is getting paid less than the 30th highest paid USWNT player and that is true too because of base pay for USWNT players as well as the USWNT squad being relatively the same while the USMNT undergoes lots of player changes.
Another wrinkle in the equal pay discussion is the timing of the USWNT and USMNT CBA’s. Each CBA isn’t signed at the same time and the USWNT is currently in court about the validity of theirs. Instead of signing a new CBA in 2013, a Memorandum of Understanding resulted in the women’s team to play under the previous CBA until December 31, 2016. The USWNT argues that they could terminate that Memorandum of Understanding at any time because they really want to have a new CBA completed before the Summer Olympics and they have negotiating leverage, while U.S. Soccer argues that the Memorandum of Understanding cannot be terminated and while they are more than willing to negotiate a new CBA, obviously prefer to wait until closer to the end of the year.
The USMNT, on the other hand, had a new CBA signed and their current deal ends in 2018. That can kind of explain why the USMNT gets more money for things like per diem and sponsorship appearances. When one CBA is from a few years before the other, those figures can be different. By that same logic, that can also be a reason for the USWNT to fight to receive more money on this upcoming CBA than the men and have a seesaw battle on who makes more just based on how recent their CBA was ratified. Instead of going off of a USMNT CBA that was ratified a couple years ago, a realistic argument can be made that the USWNT should go off of the current state of the economy and the revenue they themselves generated in 2016 and thus maybe should fight to have more than the USMNT. Now, when the USMNT does their deal in 2018, they have every right to do the same and then they’ll be ahead but unless these CBA’s are negotiated at the same time or even both the USMNT and USWNT combine to have one CBA with each other, it’s a bit unrealistic to expect everything to be 100% equal.
That doesn’t mean that things should remain as the status quo. There are some aspects where the USWNT isn’t getting paid equally and since their last agreement was a Memorandum of Understanding from 2013, the USWNT deserves way more money than they’re getting now because the state of the USWNT from 2013 until now has incredibly improved. But even if the USWNT should receive equal pay compared to the men, how can that realistically be determined if both CBA’s are going to be completed in different times and circumstances? I don’t want to see the USWNT getting denied pay they deserve either and they deserve to have a competitive pay compared to the USMNT. But unless the CBA’s are completed at the same time, it cannot be 100% equal even under the best intentions. Whenever this new USWNT CBA gets signed and ratified, whether it’s now, closer to the end of this year or even next year, it’s fair to say that the USWNT deserve a way better deal than what they have now and there should be some changes made to make sure the equality gap is as close as even as possible between both genders.
[AP]
