Megan Rapinoe and the U.S. women soccer players’ just suffered a massive loss in a landmark equal pay case.
Remember when Rapinoe and the rest were
feuding with Trump and it seems the entire planet and loudly complaining
about the money they were paid versus the men?
They couldn’t shut up about it and eventually sued – they just lost when a federal judge threw out their lawsuit.
The federal judge found that any pay
differences were due to what they negotiated in their collective
bargaining agreements – imagine that, they should have been protesting
their own damn selves the whole time.
From Bloomberg:
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner
in Los Angeles late Friday granted the U.S. Soccer Federation’s request
to take the women’s key pay discrimination claim out of the lawsuit
that had been primed to go to a highly anticipated trial.
The dispute gained widespread
attention in March when Carlos Cordeiro, who was president of U.S.
Soccer, abruptly resigned amid a furor over arguments in a federation
legal filing that the women’s team is paid differently than the men’s
team because its play is inferior and the competition worse, and it
competes in less hostile stadiums.
The judge rejected the women’s
position that they ended up getting paid more than the men only because
they played more games and were more successful than the men’s team.
Instead, according to the ruling, the evidence showed that the women’s
team not only played more games but it also made more money on average
than the men’s team.
A spokesperson for the women players said they will appeal.
“We are shocked and disappointed
with today’s decision, but we will not give up our hard work for equal
pay,” Molly Levinson said in an emailed statement. “We are confident in
our case and steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that girls and
women who play this sport will not be valued as lesser just because of
their gender.”
The fact that women received smaller
bonuses than the men on the national team shouldn’t be taken by itself
of evidence of pay discrimination, according to Klausner.
“This approach ignores other benefits received by women national
team players, such as guaranteed annual salaries and severance pay,
benefit that men national team players do not receive,” the judge said.
We will never stop fighting for EQUALITY.— Megan Rapinoe (@mPinoe) May 2, 2020
