USWNT sues USSF 2019 version

Discussion in 'USA Women: News and Analysis' started by lil_one, Mar 8, 2019.

  1. HouseofCards

    HouseofCards Member

    Nov 26, 2012
    Simply not true.

     
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  2. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    Where did the Judge say that? I've never read anywhere that the women were offered the same bonuses as the men. Gulati's testified it would have been organizational suicide to have done so.

    The bonuses can't be the same because the FIFA prize money is so distorted.

    If you have seen different, then please post some source.
     
  3. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    From what I've heard, the women are paying their lawyers a lot of money.
     
  4. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    I don't see any of the discussion you're replying to as having anything to do with FIFA WC/WWC payouts, but instead the "game bonuses" that are specified in the CBAs between USSF and the player unions.
     
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  5. Patrick167

    Patrick167 Member+

    Dortmund
    United States
    May 4, 2017
    I've been responding to a poster that keeps saying the judge found the women were offered the exact bonuses the men were. I've not seen that anywhere. Though, I have seen reports of depositions saying it was never offered because it would be impossible for USSF to have done so financially.

    The bonuses in the CBA are based on what USSF is willing to pay negotiated with the women. What USSF is willing to pay is based on the revenue behind each event. A friendly against Brazil will bring in this much revenue, on average, so we can pay this much for a win. Similarly, a semi-final WC win will bring in this much prize money and sponsorship money, so we can offer this. FIFA prize money can't be divorced from the CBA bonus for certain types of games.
     
  6. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    My word of advice is always go to the source. The summary judgement has already been posted in this thread and indeed has been discussed over the last two weeks. >>>> https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6881283/Document.pdf

    Thanks @cpthomas !

    The judge wrote: "The WNT was willing to forgo higher bonuses for other benefits....It is difficult to attach a dollar figure to this "insurance" benefit..... the WNT clearly attached significant economic value to this contractual arrangement because it was willing to agree to lower bonuses in exchange for higher fixed payments."

    All of the above is true.
     
  7. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Morgan v USSF, Installment 9:

    On March 9, 2017, the WNTPA made another proposal. It included:

    1. 20 WNT contracted players;

    2. A WNT annual salary of $105,000 per contracted player;

    3. 24 NWSL allocated players;

    4. A NWSL salary of $75,000 per allocated player;

    5. Friendly bonuses for games against Top 1-6 opponents of $12,625 per win and $3,125 per tie;

    6. The same World Cup and Olympic bonuses as in their prior proposal; [My Comment: The decision does not indicate the amounts of these bonuses.]

    7. No post-World Cup and Olympics tour bonuses;

    8. A signing bonus of $550,000 to be paid to the WNTPA; and

    9. A ticket revenue share of $1.75 per ticket sold.
    On March 16, 2017, the USSF made a further counterproposal. It included:

    1. 20 WNT contracted players;

    2. A WNT annual salary of $100,000 per contracted player;

    3. 24 NWSL allocated players;

    4. NWSL allocated player salaries ranging from $60,000 to $70,000;

    5. Friendly bonuses for games against Top 1-4 opponents of $8,500 per win and $2,000 per tie;

    6. The same World Cup and Olympics bonuses as the WNTPA had just proposed;

    7. Post-World Cup tour bonuses ranging from a total of $250,000 to $375,000 per game and post-Olympics tour bonuses ranging from $200,000 to $325,000 per game;

    8. A signing bonus of $200,000; and

    9. An annual payment of $350,000 for group likeness rights.
    On March 29, 2017, the WNTPA made another counterproposal. It included:

    1. The same number of WNT contracted players and the same salaries for them as just proposed by USSF;

    2. Friendly bonuses for games against Top 1-4 opponents of $10,000 per win and $2,000 per tie;

    3. All friendly bonuses would be increased by 20% in 2021;

    4. Significantly higher bonuses for the post-World Cup and post-Olympics tours; and

    5. A signing bonus of $300,000.
    The WNTPA and USSF had a final meeting on April 2, 2017. USSF advised that the most recent WNTPA would cost the USSF $1.6 million more than USSF’s most recent proposal and that the WNTPA would have to reduce the total cost of its proposal by $500,000 to reach a deal.

    Over the next two days, the deal was completed and on April 4, 2017, the WNTPA voted to ratify a new CBA covering the period from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2021. The WNTPA has not asked the USSF to re-open negotiations to change its terms.

    [My Comment: In my next installment, I will go through the decision’s description of the terms of the new CBA.

    An impression I have after going through the history of the negotiations (which history does not included all of the details of each proposal and counterproposal) is that although there were a lot of moving parts to the negotiations and a lot of issues other than just money issues, what fundamentally drove the negotiations, at least in its latter stages, was what the actual cash value of the deal would be -- essentially, what the dollar cost of the deal would be for USSF. This appears to have been where both sides spent the bulk of their time and energy, once they set some broad outlines at the beginning.

    As one further comment, in going through these details, it has occurred to me that collective bargaining and other labor laws such as equal pay laws, as applied to professional sports, are in a peculiar position. If I am a worker on an assembly line doing tedious and boring work, my employer is paying me to get me to be willing to do it. That may be an extreme characterization of the situation, maybe I like the work some, but it will help illustrate my point. In contrast, in most cases if I am a highest level athlete, I most likely love playing my sport and want to play it at the highest level. In fact, if no one paid me to play it and I could manage it financially, I probably would play anyway. This too may be an extreme characterization, but I think to a great extent it is true. So, in a bargaining situation, I am negotiating to get you to pay me a lot of money to get me to do something I love to do. In terms of the possibility of a strike, for example, ordinarily the motivation not to strike is the potential loss of income during the strike -- the motivation is not that I won’t get to do my assembly line job which I love so much. But from a professional sport perspective, the motivation not to strike may be partly economic but it also likely is largely that I won’t get to play the sport that I love. And for soccer, I won’t get to play in the World Cup, for example. It makes for a peculiar situation.]
     
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  8. Lloyd Heilbrunn

    Lloyd Heilbrunn Member+

    Feb 11, 2002
    Jupiter, Fl.
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If I have the time, I will try to find the Court's language that I had previously seen about them rejecting an offer of the men's bonuses.

    I don't think it was the above.
     
  9. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I do not really claim to understand all the ramifications of the offers and counter offers but one thing does strike as weird:

    It looks like there is zero pay for losing a friendly. I guess that makes some sense but it does not seem to be good business practice.
     
  10. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    Appearance fee...
     
  11. HouseofCards

    HouseofCards Member

    Nov 26, 2012
    The women's bonus for losing is their salary that they get regardless if they win or lose, whether they play or don't.
     
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  12. HouseofCards

    HouseofCards Member

    Nov 26, 2012
    I showed you the court's language. He used the word "structure" 3 times in the one paragraph.
     
  13. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It wasn't the women that rejected the men's bonuses, it was USSF. The first offer from the women in the CBA negotiation was guaranteed contracts and the men's bonuses. USSF's counter was a pay per play similar what the men's contract has, but with lower pay and lower bonuses. The women then dropped the men's bonuses and offered less guaranteed contracts than before. At no point did the women reject an offer from USSF that included the men's bonuses, they just stopped including the men's bonuses after their initial offer.
     
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  14. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Part of the offer was a guaranteed contract, which acted as the minimum per game pay.
     
  15. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I do not really claim to understand all the ramifications of the offers and counter offers but one thing does strike as weird:

    It looks like there is zero pay for losing a friendly. I guess that makes some sense but it does not seem to be good business practice.
    I still do not understand how that works in conjunction with the idea of developing players. One of the purposes of friendlies is supposedly to take players that are out of current favor and see how they fit in and if they are not currently under contract and they play in a friendly that ends up being a loss does it mean they get nothing.

    I assume that there is something outside the "contract" that covers non-contracted players but it seems that is not addressed at all. Is it that the players are just trying to protect themselves or the contracted players? But it does not seem that the current structure or the proposed structure is in the best interest of development.

    Of course I do not know any details of how non-contracted players are handled and they may be handled quite reasonably and fairly.

    We have recently lost a large part of the development pipeline and that is concerning and I hope some thought has been given to keeping the player pool fresh and dynamic.
     
  16. lil_one

    lil_one Member+

    Nov 26, 2013
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm not scrolling back through this whole thread, but I know somewhere in this thread or the CBA thread I posted details about non-contract players and how they get paid. From what I remember, they basically get paid for being on the roster/in camp plus the win bonus. For them, its basically a pay-to-play system; they don't walk away empty-handed if the team loses. And under the current CBA, there are no longer restrictions on the number of non-contract players (or floaters, as they used to be called). Additionally, as I've said numerous times, the number of contract players is continually being reduced, and currently sits at 17 or 18 (somewhere in this forum I also posted the list of the current contracted players), so some of the players that people think of as fixtures are actually non-contract.
     
  17. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Thank you @lil_one. I knew there was something said about that but I could not remember what it was or where it was. There is a lot of data that has been posted and my old brain just has trouble recalling and sorting all that info.

    If it sounds like I have more concern about new players than current ones that is because I do to a large extent. The USWNT is really based on a sound foundation and a reliable player pool to pull new players, or old ones, from. If the pool dries up or gets throttled much the USWNT will suffer and I do not want that to happen so I just wanted to be sure that some thought had been given too the pool players.

    Thank you for the good answers.
     
  18. Amdrag

    Amdrag Member+

    Jun 10, 2007
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Both sides have lawyers. Expensive ones.
     
  19. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    And THAT is the problem.
     
  20. Amdrag

    Amdrag Member+

    Jun 10, 2007
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    That doesn't make sense. That is a level, fair playing field. No one where is in crime court, with an overworked public defender.
     
  21. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    In the long run in most lawsuits the only people that really make money are the lawyers.

    I kind of agree with what Shakespeare had "Dick the Butcher" say in Henry VI part 2: ''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." While he was talking about corrupt lawyers I have found that lawyers in general are so vastly over payed for their services it virtually makes them all corrupt. They will extend lawsuits until the money runs out or they see that there is no chance of milking the system for more and then they drop everything like a hot potato.

    Laws are written and interpreted and ultimately enforced by lawyers for the only real purpose of making lawyers needed and enriching the same. That is why so much of even international law is written in English. It is largely ambiguous and has so many words with multiple meanings and allows constructions that can be read in so many ways that it lends itself to the very things that makes lawyers so happy.
     
  22. deejay

    deejay Member+

    Feb 14, 2000
    Tarpon Springs, FL
    Club:
    Jorge Wilstermann
    Nat'l Team:
    Bolivia
    You could just click on the link I provided.
     
  23. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Morgan v USSF, installment 10:

    The next portion of the Facts part of the court’s decision describes the 2017 CBA that the WNTPA and USSF agreed to:

    1. There will be 20 contracted WNT players.

    2. Each contracted WNT player will receive a $100,000 annual salary.

    3. There will be two tiers of NWSL allocated players, consisting of 11 players for each tier.

    4. Tier 1 NWSL players will receive a $67,500 base salary and Tier 2 players $62,500.

    5. For friendlies against teams ranked 1-4, WNT players will receive a win bonus of $8,500 and a tie bonus of $1,750. For teams ranked 5-8, the bonuses are $6,500 and $1,250. For teams ranked 9+ the win bonus is $5,250, but there is no tie bonus. There are no bonuses for losses.

    6. For the World Cup, WNT players will receive qualifying game bonuses of $3,000 per win and $500 per tie. For qualifying for the Cup, players will receive a bonus of $37,500; and for making the Cup roster a bonus of $37,500. For winning the Cup, players will receive a bonus of $110,000; for 2nd $50,000; and for 3rd $25,000.

    7. For a post-World Cup tour, the WNTPA will receive a payment ranging from $250,000 to $350,000.

    8. For the Olympics, WNT players will receive qualifying game bonuses of $3,000 per win and $500 per tie. For Olympic gold, players will receive a bonus of $100,000; $55,000 for silver; and $25,000 for bronze.

    9. For a post-Olympics tour, the WNTPA will receive a payment ranging from $200,000 to $300,000.

    10. The WNTPA will receive a ticket revenue share of $1.50 per paid ticket (to be increased for future games if the MNT per paid ticket revenue share increases so as to match the MNT payment).

    11. WNT players will receive a $5,000 bonus for 1st in each of She Believes and the Four Nations Tournament.

    12. The WNTPA will receive a one-time signing bonus of $230,000.

    13. In addition, there will be:

    a. Severance benefits;

    b. Injury protection;

    c. Health, dental, and vision insurance;

    d. Pregnancy pay;

    e. Guaranteed rest time;

    f. Child case assistance;

    g. Partnership bonuses for exceeding SUM revenue targets;

    h. Partnership bonuses tied to increased viewership;

    i. An annual payment in exchange for USSF’s commercial use of player likenesses; and

    j. A requirement that USSF make good faith efforts to schedule a minimum number of WNT games.

    None of a through j are in the MNT CBA.
    [My Comment: This ends the description of what the court identified as the undisputed facts of the case. Although it appears to me that the court includes more facts later in the decision, those facts simply may be the result of calculations based on the undisputed facts -- I will know better when I have finished with these installments -- and otherwise appear to be related to the issues the court did not resolve with its summary judgment decision. I am assuming that the facts I have set are the complete material fact basis the judge had for the decision.

    Typically, when a federal judge grants a summary judgment, the judge is very careful in setting out the facts clearly and concisely. This is because, on appeal, the question will be whether the law, as applied to those facts, compels the decision the judge made. If there are disputes, in the record, about those facts, or if those facts by themselves are not sufficient to compel the decision, then the case will be reversed on appeal. Given this, those reading the balance of the opinion, which relates primarily to what the law is and how it applies to those facts, would be wise to be careful not to read into the court’s language any meaning greater than what has been in the recitation of facts.

    Although I will go through the salient points of the judge’s legal analysis in future installments, when I first got out of law school, I clerked for a very good federal district court judge who strongly emphasized to me this: When reading a decision, what it really stands for is the facts and the decision -- the judge’s reasoning as to how the law applies to the facts may be interesting, but that reasoning is not what the case stands for. Applied to Morgan v USSF, as decided so far, what that means simply is this: We have seen what the judge says are all the material undisputed facts of the case. Those facts, according to the judge, show that the WNT players do not have a federal equal pay case.]​
     
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  24. Chastaen

    Chastaen Member+

    Alavés
    Jul 9, 2004
    Winnipeg
    Club:
    Aston Villa FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In government the people that make the money are politicans. In medical the people that make the money are doctors and pharmaceuticals. In business the people that make the money are the owners and managers.

    It doesnt necessarily mean all of the are wrong. We just arent one of them.
     

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