This page was created by Collin Hardwick.
2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement - 2019 Lawsuit
However, as this deal did not fully address the complaint filed in 2016 over unequal pay for equal work, it still hangs over the head of the US Soccer Federation.
As a result, the entirety of the US Women’s Soccer Team filed a class action lawsuit against the USSF in March of 2019. This lawsuit claimed that US Soccer has continued its discrimination against the USWNT based on their gender, as they are as financially successful as the men’s team. To help drive this point home, the lawsuit was filed on International Women’s Day (Wamsley).
Even after the 2017 deal was reached, the women’s team was still paid less for each match, making the World Cup, and for winning the World Cup. Even now, the women’s team stands to earn less than half of the men’s team for winning the same amount of games. And these are just the major areas (Wamsley). Even though the USWNT has shown they are capable of generating revenue on par and better than the men, they still have to prove themselves in the USSF’s eyes.
US Women’s Soccer is in a strange position. Rather than having to fight for proportional compensation until they are able to earn alongside men’s teams, their continued success has made their pay far less proportional to the men. And for this reason, we can conclude that the USWNT is paid disproportionately to the USMNT. Their continued fight for equal pay for equal performance is a testament to this.
Top image source: Omar Vega/Getty Images, https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/us-womens-soccer-sues-u-s-soccer-for-gender-discrimination.html
