National Review Online
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Los Angeles federal judge R. Gary Klauser did two things
that don’t happen often in public arguments about gender and wages: He looked
at the evidence, and he took women’s choices seriously. The result was a defeat
for a class-action lawsuit filed by the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team
against the U.S. Soccer Federation, but a victory for women’s priorities in the
workplace.
USSF is the governing body for both men’s and women’s
soccer, and it collectively bargains contracts separately with the unions for
the men’s and women’s teams. The chief claim in the women’s-team lawsuit was
that the players on the women’s team made less money than they would have if
they had been paid under the men’s-team contract. That makes for a nice sound
bite, but it dissolves on contact with three very important facts.
First, the women made more money than the men — a lot
more. The lowest-paid member of the women’s team made more money than the
highest-paid member of the men’s team. Even when computed on a per-game basis,
the women made more per game than the men. This is not a lawsuit for equal pay,
it is a lawsuit for more-unequal pay.
Second, yes, the women would have made more money under
the men’s contract. But, as Judge Klauser’s decision
noted, the men would also have made more money under the women’s
contract. Under the women’s team’s legal theory, the USSF would be guilty of
giving unequal pay to both teams. Maybe it’s the USSF’s labor
negotiators who should be asking for more money.
Third, and most important, the women’s team made less
money because they were offered the chance to play under the men’s contract
terms and turned them down. This is where the case tells inconvenient truths
about the labor market. The men’s team played under a “pay-to-play” contract,
in which all the economic risk was borne by the players in exchange for more
upside if the players made the team and the team was successful. The men’s team
was not successful, so they made less money. Now, with no games being played,
they are making no money at all, while the women are still getting paid.
The women’s team turned down that deal, because they
valued different things: guaranteed contracts, injury protection; health,
dental, and vision insurance; child-care assistance; severance pay; guaranteed
rest time. In short: more security and more benefits. True, they asked for the
men’s deal plus those things, on the theory that they had a legal right
to both. The USSF negotiator told them, “Your proposal is basically for all of
the upside plus the elimination of risk.” But that’s negotiation; what the
women’s team unanimously accepted was a tradeoff of less opportunity in
exchange for less risk and more benefits.
As Judge Klauser noted, both benefits and economic
security have economic value, and the women’s team’s position “ignores the
reality that the [men’s and women’s teams] bargained for different agreements
which reflect different preferences, and that the [women’s team] explicitly
rejected the terms they now seek to retroactively impose on themselves.” This
is often true of the wider labor market, in which women tend – not always, but
on average – to prefer jobs with more benefits and security, even when that may
come at the expense of less cash or less opportunity for bonuses. Those are
legitimate choices that should be respected.
Instead, we get vapid rhetoric and threats. Joe Biden
tweeted to the USSF, “Equal pay, now. Or else when I’m president, you can go
elsewhere for World Cup funding.” For a guy who says he respects women’s
choices, Biden doesn’t seem to think they know what’s good for them. We
recommend he take his hands off women’s soccer.
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