Plan B Forum

A judge has ruled that the world champion US women's football team does not have the right to strike.



Female players had been considering striking in an effort to address wage discrimination.



The US Soccer Federation sued the players' union to prevent a strike that could have caused the team to miss the summer Olympics.

The judge ruled the players are not eligible to strike because of a provision in an earlier contract.

In March, five players filed a lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging pay discrimination. They argued female players were sometimes paid four times less than their male counterparts despite holding the world title.

The players' union had not called a strike over the issue, but had been weighing the possibility.

The US Soccer Federation - the sport's national governing body- filed its own suit to prevent a strike. It argued a no-strike clause from an early collective bargaining agreement carried over to the 2013 memorandum of understanding that the players are currently working under.

The union argued that a no-strike clause had never been specifically laid out in the terms of the latest agreement.

However, the judge sided with the federation citing oral and email communication between the two sides, as evidence that the original terms were passed to the new agreement.

"A collective bargaining agreement may be partly or wholly oral and a written collective bargaining agreement may be orally modified," Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman wrote in her ruling.

The union argued that a no-strike clause had never been specifically laid out in the terms of the latest agreement.

However, the judge sided with the federation citing oral and email communication between the two sides, as evidence that the original terms were passed to the new agreement.

"A collective bargaining agreement may be partly or wholly oral and a written collective bargaining agreement may be orally modified," Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman wrote in her ruling.

They argued female players were sometimes paid four times less than their male counterparts despite holding the world title.

The Forbes Celebrity list has a number of male soccer players, but no women. The U.S. men’s team has a player who earns $6 million from his club (Michael Bradley of Toronto FC). The maximum salary for the women in the National Women’s Soccer League is $126,000 (but the details are complicated). The bottom line is that the men on the national soccer team make a lot of money from their clubs, but the women don’t . Some of the men might not bother to show up for paltry pay, but the women are likely to be less particular—because their regular jobs pay so little.

Is this discrimination? The pay disparity derives not from U.S. Soccer but from the money paid to players by their teams. Men’s teams pay more because they have hugely higher attendance and hugely higher television audiences. MLS average attendance last year was 21,574 per game. The NWSL averaged 5,046 per game. Men’s soccer salaries are pulled up by competition with international teams, where pay runs as high as $79 million a year (Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid). The top woman player, Marta (FC Rosengard), gets $400,000. With endorsements, Alex Morgan (Orlando Pride) is thought to earn $1 million a year.

The discrimination in soccer comes from the fans. They attend the MLS games, they watch MLS on television, and they buy jerseys from MLS teams. Fewer of them attend NWSL games. Hardly any of those games are televised, but who thinks a league with small attendance would produce many viewers?

I’m personally sympathetic to the women’s claim. I have front-row season tickets for the women’s team Portland Thorns (as well as the MLS Portland Timbers). I see the women sweat, strain, take body blows, get up and hustle down the field again. It’s fun to watch, but a hard way to make a buck. If fans supported women soccer players as much as they support men’s professional teams, then women athletes would earn as much as the men. Until then, not likely at all.

the women are more popular than the men in the U.S. market on some measurements

Long Run wrote:And add to that, the competing teams get a share of the overall World Cup revenue from FIFA, and men's WC creates vastly greater sums than the women's WC. The Olympics are much like the World Cup, from a player's perspective, so they expect similar treatment. So the comparison to the men's team is faulty, even though the women are more popular than the men in the U.S. market on some measurements. I do agree the women have room within the available revenues to get a better deal next time around.