Treat Your People Right
Post excerpted from A Mighty Girl (amightgirl.com), from Facebook
“Five of America’s top soccer players filed a federal wage discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission this week. Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe, all star members of the U.S. Women’s National Team that won their third FIFA Women’s World Cup last summer, maintain that they earn significantly less than male players at every level of competition from "friendly matches" to the World Cup while consistently outperforming them. “The numbers speak for themselves. We are the best in the world, have three World Cup championships, four Olympic championships,” says Solo. “[But male players] get paid more to just show up than we get paid to win major championships... We continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer, and to get paid for doing it. In this day and age, it's about equality. It's about equal rights, it's about equal pay."
“The filing cited figures from the U.S. Soccer Federation's 2015 financial report which found that despite the women's team generating nearly $20 million more revenue last year than the U.S. men's team, the women are paid about a quarter of what the men earn. For example, World Cup bonuses are substantially lower for women: the 2015 the women's team earned a total of $2 million in bonuses for winning the World Cup, while the 2014 men’s team earned $9 million in bonuses without even making it out of the round of 16.”
“U.S. Soccer has responded by saying that the men’s national team produces both revenue and attendance that is higher than the USWNT, but the five players argue that recent financial reports show that the women’s team is now the bigger money maker -- and increasingly the bigger public draw with last summer's women's World Cup final match becoming the most watched soccer game in American TV history.
“Peter Romer-Friedman, the deputy director of litigation for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, says that it’s important that they’ve made their claim public: “The players are saying, ‘It’s important for the public to know that we’ve filed this suit’... It is important for them to speak out because it has an educational effect.” For the players, however, it comes down to simple fairness. Lloyd, who made World Cup history with her hat trick in the 2015 final, told Today, “Just coming off of a World Cup win, the pay disparity between the men and women is just too large. And we want to continue to fight… I think that we've proven our worth over the years.”
“You can read more about the wage discrimination complaint on the New York Times at nyti.ms/1WZAXZR, or watch four of the players interviewed on Today at on.today.com/1Sp6DUC.”
I feel like I keep saying this over and over again: Treat your people right. Treat them fairly.
If you have a compensation rubric, an explanation for how you determine fair wages for a certain job, share that. Above all, make sure your people feel appreciated. No one wants to be taken advantage of – and that’s what it feels like when you aren’t compensated appropriately (paid less for doing the same work – or better work – than a colleague in a similar position).
How do you show your people you value them – and treat them fairly?