The US Women’s National Team suffered a major blow today as their claims of gender discrimination were dismissed. The wage discrimination lawsuit was filed last March with 28 members of the team listed as plaintiffs, though the battle between USWNT and U.S. Soccer over equal pay has been going on for four years.
Judge R. Gary Klausner dismissed accusations of violations of the Equal Pay Act because the women played more games and earned more money than the men’s team. Because the women rejected a Collective Bargain Agreement (CBA), Klausner stated that the two agreements could not be compared apples to oranges. The women’s CBA guarantees that players will be compensated whether they play a match or not, while the men’s CBA says that players will be paid only if they are called to play and then participate in a match.
“This approach — merely comparing what each team would have made under the other team’s CBA — is untenable in this case because it ignores the reality that the MNT and WNT bargained for different agreements which reflect different preferences, and that the WNT explicitly rejected the terms they now seek to retroactively impose on themselves,” Klausner said.
Claims of unequal working conditions related to travel, medical staff, and training equipment will move forward to trial on June 16th.
The women spoke up on Twitter about the matter.
USWNT spokeswoman Molly Levinson said that they will appeal as early as Monday.
