Oh god, not this shit again. Please go away. You didn't need to kill that many pixels over this tired line of reasoning - I stopped reading in the first paragraph of several very long posts. Misogyny is not a good legal strategy. The fact is, the USWNTPA's legal arguments are very weak and full of holes. Maybe you should focus on the structural problems instead of going straight for the idiot track. The players are arguing on Twitter and social media because they're legal case is problematic. They collectively bargained for what they are getting. They are getting guarantees and other benefits the MNTPA doesn't get. They're suing to get what they already have and benefits the men get, they are not trying to get the same contract the men have. That's not "equal". That's the problem. You should stick to that.
Yeah, as another attorney, I think a pretty good argument can be made that their jobs are "playing international soccer representing the United States", without a requirement that it be against either men or women. As Andy indicated above, their biggest problem is the CBA. US Soccer's biggest problem is the horrendous PR they're getting over these issues. I still predict this case will settle before trial.
Pretty big here: Alex Morgan says a lot of progress has been made in WNT suit, and she expects a settlement: https://t.co/OZqWaCofKX— Beau Dure 🇺🇦🌈🖖☮️ (@duresport) November 6, 2019
That would seem to be a strained conclusion. Do female accountants only audit businesses owned by women? Do female lawyers only try cases against other clients represented by women? No, and the reason why a firm cannot refuse to hire a woman as an attorney who may have to go against a man who is an attorney from another firm is precisely because the woman can reasonably be expected to be able to prevail against the man. Of course, the only reason for playing against opponents of the same sex is because in most physical team sports women cannot compete and win against men. Thus, in the context of sports, there is an innate inferiority of ability that is not present in most other workplaces. But I don't know if that creates a "sports exception" for the concept of "similar working conditions."
That presumes that international women's soccer is the same as international men's soccer. It is not, of course. There are, for example, many more countries with very competitive men's teams than there are countries with competitive women's teams. That makes it easier for a women's team to qualify for a World Cup and win a championship. Of course, winning the less competitive WWC may result in the USWNT gaining a more lucrative following than the USMNT. If so, they have a very strong argument to be paid more, and not to have compensation suppressed artificially simply because they are women. But they are not asked to perform as competitive a task as the men's team, and people should not pretend otherwise.
I am surprised that you found my statement that the USWNT might have a good potentially provable argument to be paid more based on greater revenue generation to be misogyny. But the capacity of other human minds to twist ordinary concepts into something unrecognizable in logic never ceases to amaze me.
It's hard to figure out how "similar working conditions" fits, when applied to the sports world. Take men's wrestling, for example. Does a heavyweight have different working conditions than a lighter weight? I think the big question is whether the "equal pay for equal work" rules apply to sports at all (rather than the question being whether the work is equal). On that big question, I think the women's argument is a pretty big stretch.
I’ve always wondered how logically the “equal pay for equal play” works when the women negotiate tiers in their contracts. Might work legally, but logically?
However it can also be debated at the salary levels of the clubs for each as well. If the Ottawa Fury were top of their league do we justify paying the same as FC Cincinnati players because one is better in their environment than the other? I'd wager the idea that the Women's league not even being self sufficient could call into question the equal work issue.
Fair point. Or to consider this. Both sets of soccer teams make more money, likely, than any US national lacrosse team. Does the USWNT (who cannot beat any team the USMNT plays) have a claim to be paid more than the men's lacrosse team? Yes, if based on economics alone. But I don't think the men's team could claim discrimination on the grounds that it works as hard as the women's soccer team.
Since both these examples completely ignore the requirement of a common employer, let alone the issue of similar employment or working conditions, they are pretty much meaningless.
US Soccer's possible exposure just went up a great deal... USWNT was granted class certification in its gender discrimination lawsuit against US Soccer today. The opinion is pretty rough on the federation's argument.— Andrew Das (@AndrewDasNYT) November 8, 2019
Does anyone know how the class is defined? Obviously, the class action certification means it's more than just the named plaintiffs, but who else is in the class?
Probably limited to those playing during the requested timeframe. I personally don't have the time to actually look it up... This does not throw the case open to hundreds of players, however, as the lawsuit already had set a defined time period for the case.— Andrew Das (@AndrewDasNYT) November 8, 2019
As @AndrewDasNYT and others have already reported, the judge in the USWNT equal pay case granted the players' motion for certification of the case as a class action. Given both the decision and the reasoning, it was a pretty thorough victory for the USWNT players pic.twitter.com/GhEaIXd7tb— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) November 8, 2019 Class action motions are pretty technical, so I'll just highlight a couple of issues. First, USSF argued that the players hadn't proven standing. This is the req. that a plaintiff allege an actual harm they suffered in order to sue someone— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) November 8, 2019 One req. of standing is that the plaintiff allege an "injury-in-fact." For example, a compensation plan could be unequal and the plaintiff could be paid under that plan, but if they were highly paid despite the scheme, they wouldn't have standing pic.twitter.com/BlIMNeH73C— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) November 8, 2019 USSF argued that the proposed class reps hadn't demonstrated standing b/c they were actually paid more than any men over that period. The judge rejects that argument, noting that it's not the aggregate amount, but the rate of pay/unit of time that would be the appropriate measure pic.twitter.com/VvxVCnYEoi— Steven Bank (@ProfBank) November 8, 2019 FYI, the tweets quote extensively from the opinion, but that does not appear to transfer when they are quoted. Go to the links if you wish to read more...
Thank you very much Lloyd H. So the class goes from 28 named plaintiffs to 50 players in all. That sounds like all that have been called into camp or been on game rosters within some period of time, since that number is somewhere around 50 over the last World Cup cycle. As the tweets you posted state, that's not a big difference so the the USSF may have had some other motivation for objecting to the class -- perhaps hoping for a ruling that effectively would make the players feel less secure about going forward. If that's what the USSF was trying for, it didn't work. And interestingly, since the judge seemed to indicate that the women received less on a per unit of work basis than the men, even if they received more in gross pay, it sounds like at this point the judge is seeing the women's work as equal to the men's.
Yep, they seem to be past that stage. Although to be fair, I don't know the extent that US soccer actually argued in the case that it was different work, despite how often it is/was argued here. It might be something only us attorneys think about, but if they had argued that, and the women made a prima facie case of disparate treatment anyway, it might lock-in the discriminatory intent element, and preclude some of the economic arguments on the defense side!
Perhaps the USSF has decided not to argue that it's different work. If they're hearing "Equal Pay, Equal Pay" chants now, imagine the blowback from publicly asserting that female athletes are "less than" male athletes. And, USSF, by doing that, might actually do damage to the development of women's soccer.
I have no idea if the dollar numbers in this article are accurate, but if so, they are pretty startling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...b8a482-0551-11ea-ac12-3325d49eacaa_story.html
Sally Jenkins described Megan Rapinoe as a "languid jaguar". This reveals the level of journalism said person engages in.
This is what Sally probably meant. Too bad she's bad at the English language and basically said the opposite. Oh, no, the florid prose that accompanied it was extra-special, too!