In the latest labor salvo between the World Cup-winning U.S. women’s national team players and the U.S. Soccer Federation,
the five most prominent members of the USWNT have filed an action with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (a government agency)
accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination in relation to the money the
federation pays to the U.S. men’s national team.
In a press release announced Thursday morning, lawyers
for the five U.S. players—Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, Megan
Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn—argue that the USWNT is paid almost four
times less than the USMNT, despite producing nearly $20 million in
revenues for U.S. Soccer in 2015 (per U.S. Soccer’s recently released
annual financial report).
The U.S. Soccer pay figures for the men and women (numbers
from documents obtained by SI.com are presented in the table below)
were agreed to by the players as part of separate collective bargaining
agreements, but the U.S. women’s team argues that its CBA has expired.
U.S. Soccer, for its part, has maintained that the CBA with the U.S. women’s players is still in effect through the end of 2016 due to a memorandum of understanding signed by the two sides in 2013. In an effort to get a court to decide if the CBA is still in place, U.S. Soccer filed its own separate action in February in Chicago. Discovery for that case was set to be completed on Thursday, with oral arguments on the motions set to take place before the Chicago court on May 25.
(SI.com)
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