Appeal: U.S. women continue equal pay fight
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Jul 24, 2021
In May 2020, Klausner rejected the players' claim that they had not been paid equally under their collective bargaining agreement to that of the men’s national team and asked for damages they estimated to be more than $66 million under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Klausner's decision rested on his finding that the agreements were simply different, not unequal.
“The history of negotiations between the parties demonstrates that the WNT rejected an offer to be paid under the same pay-to-play structure as the MNT, and the WNT was willing to forgo higher bonuses for benefits, such as greater base compensation and the guarantee of a higher number of contracted players,” he wrote. “Accordingly, plaintiffs cannot now retroactively deem their CBA worse than the MNT CBA by reference to what they would have made had they been paid under the MNT’s pay-to-play terms structure when they themselves rejected such a structure."
One crucial element in a pay discrimination claim is the rate of play, how much women make in comparison to men.
U.S. Soccer argued successfully that the women ($220,747 per match) made more per game than the men ($212,639). In their appeal, the women argue that difference was due their success: "The court did not account for performance -- specifically, that the women had to be the best in the world to make about the same amount per game as the much less successful men."
The women also argued that the federation's "discriminatory employment actions" -- statements made by federation representatives -- should have gone to a jury for it to decide whether the federation discriminated against their players.
The USWNT players filed their appeal today on the Equal Pay Act/Title VII claims in their lawsuit against US Soccer (their working condition claims were settled earlier). I'll offer a few (but only a few) thoughts 1/ pic.twitter.com/3YYyHflcwo
— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) July 23, 2021
U.S. Soccer has repeatedly stated that it is willing to meet with the players to settle the case. In its statement issued to the media on Friday, the federation reiterated the essence of the Klausner's ruling:
“In ruling in favor of U.S. Soccer on the players’ pay discrimination claims, the District Court rightly noted that the Women’s National Team negotiated for a different pay structure than the Men’s National Team, and correctly held that the Women’s National Team was paid more both cumulatively and on an average per-game basis than the Men’s National Team."
5 comments about "Appeal: U.S. women continue equal pay fight".
Read more comments >
Next story loading 
Good summary of the case.
Paul, are you on record? Should US Soccer pay the $38 million FIFA WC bonus delta USWNT is demanding?
You should not believe everything that people say about the lawsuit. The Complaint demands no specific sums of money. Details of incomplete settlement negotiations as well as mediation are supposed to be confidential.
I simply want to point out the misleading and borderline unethical headline of this story. At this point an extensive court proceeding has found that the WNT RECEIVED appropriate pay according to their contract and that is can be regarded as equal (as noted in the story, per game). The headline should be something neutral, e.g.
WNT appeals decision in compensation case. Let's try to raise the standards here.
This lawsuit has been adopted as a symbol of the widespread inequity of pay between men and women for equal work, but the facts do not support this interpretation. At best you have an ambiguous situation in which the WNT chose a different contractual structure with more assured income and benefits and the men chose a different structure (this is exactly what the court found). It is unfortunate that this complex situation has been caricatured since in most cases of true inequity women are doing the same job, didn't have a choice of a different compensation structure, and are being paid less for no substantive reason. Please do your part to be fair here.
The lower court decision is not a final decision. Only when and if it becomes a final decision will it have a legal effect.