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U.S. Soccer and Women’s Stars Reach Deal on Working Conditions
Both sides claimed victory with the agreement, which clears the way for the women’s team to appeal a court ruling that had rejected its equal pay claims.
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The United States Soccer Federation and its World Cup champion women’s team said Tuesday that they had resolved the players’ outstanding claims about working conditions, a rare moment of détente — and mutual happiness — before the sides’ long-running fight about equal pay returns to federal court.
The agreement, filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California, is equal parts labor peace and legal maneuvering. For the players and their lawyers, the deal brings opportunity: In settling their issues related to working conditions, the women’s stars cleared the way to appealing a judge’s decision in May that had rejected most of their equal pay claims.
For the federation, removing one of the last unresolved items in the team’s wage-discrimination lawsuit allowed its new leadership team to rid itself of one more point of contention in a dispute they would prefer to see end, and to signal that U.S. Soccer is open to more accommodations.
U.S. Soccer’s president, Cindy Parlow Cone, hailed Tuesday’s agreement, saying it signaled the federation’s efforts “to find a new way forward” with the women’s team and, hopefully, a way out of the rest of the litigation. In a conference call, she spoke of “a different relationship” with the women’s team, of which she was once a member, and of a chance to “rebuild the trust” between the sides.
“This settlement is good news for everyone,” Cone said, “and I believe will serve as a springboard for continued progress.”
In some ways, the agreement simply codified an effort that U.S. Soccer had already begun to remove any differences in areas like staffing, travel, hotel accommodations and venue choices related to men’s and women’s national team matches. U.S. Soccer said it would put the deal into effect immediately.
The settlement does not address past working conditions or involve any payments to the women’s players, according to a U.S. Soccer official familiar with the agreement. And it does nothing to address the women’s equal pay claims, on which the sides remain almost comically apart. But in resolving the players’ issues related to working conditions, it will allow the players to refocus on overturning the devastating ruling on their equal pay claims. That effort, if successful, could be worth tens of millions of dollars in back pay and damages.
“We are pleased that the USWNT players have fought for — and achieved — long overdue equal working conditions,” Molly Levinson, a spokeswoman for the players, said in a statement. “We now intend to file our appeal to the court’s decision, which does not account for the central fact in this case that women players have been paid at lesser rates than men who do the same job.
“We remain as committed as ever,” Levinson added, “to our work to achieve the equal pay that we legally deserve.”
The women’s players and U.S. Soccer have been plotting a path forward in their relationship since May, when a federal judge, R. Gary Klausner, delivered a crushing blow to the players’ equal pay arguments.
In his ruling, Judge Klausner not only dismissed the players’ contention that they were systematically underpaid by U.S. Soccer in comparison with men’s national team players, but he also said the federation had substantiated its argument that the women’s team had actually earned more “on both a cumulative and an average per-game basis” than the men’s team during the years at issue in the lawsuit.
The ruling was a significant, if unpopular, victory for U.S. Soccer. The stars of the women’s team — players like Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Julie Ertz — are some of the federation’s most popular and highest-paid employees, and they had embraced the equal pay fight. Using their years of media training, their popularity and their huge social media followings, they had worked effectively since going public with their fight nearly five years ago to bring fans and, critically, federation sponsors to their cause.
In February, months before Judge Klausner’s ruling, they had set a price for ending their lawsuit: $67 million in back pay and damages. On Tuesday, Parlow Cone said even a much smaller figure “would likely bankrupt the federation.” But she stressed several times during her conference call that she and the federation’s new leadership were eager to engage in discussions that might lead to a resolution.
The new agreement on working conditions is expected to be included in the new collective bargaining agreements for both national teams, along with triggers that would automatically make reciprocal any gains by either side in future negotiations.
The teams have long had separate unions, separate collective bargaining agreements and separate compensation structures — it is part of the reason they are paid differently and, the women argue, unfairly — but those deals are still to be ironed out. The men’s agreement expired at the end of 2018. The current women’s C.B.A. runs out at the end of 2021.
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