US Women's National Hockey Team and Equal Pay

E&B give an inside look at the National Women's Hockey League's fight for equal pay.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridge and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. So one of
the things that I feel like we talked about a
lot on this show are things that really make me

(00:25):
angry or upset, and they don't really have a good conclusion. True,
there's a lot to bom us out right now. Yes,
but luckily this is not one of those things. Is
the story of a fight for justice and fairness inequality
that ends with a very happy ending victory. Victory, the
victory story. What's it about? Bridget is about hockey? And

(00:50):
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, is it the
story of how a scrappy, upstart hockey team beat the
like villains all of my ducks? I love it. We
need a lady mighty Ducks. Yeah, I would be a
good women's hockey call us. We'll write it for want that.

(01:14):
So basically, this is a story of how the Women's
Hockey League, the National Women's Hockey League of the United States,
fought and one for pay equality. So something that we
should say is that pay equality in sports is not
something that is is normalized. Unfortunately, it's really bad actually,
and I feel like pay equality obviously in this country

(01:35):
writ large, is not illegal. You know, it's not a
law of the land. You can get away with not
paying women equally for equal work, which is awful, um,
but it's not the law of the land yet. And
I think you know what I think is so great
about how these athletes sort of framed that is they
connected it totally to sort of larger issues of women

(01:57):
being mistreated and not being compensated barely in general. So
it's not just you know, pay athletes better because we're
great and we deserve pay. Although they are great, super great,
they then great and these are women the National ins
Hockey League. Come to find out. I know you've all
been watching the sport religiously, but in catching up myself,
it turns out that they've won seven global titles, isn't

(02:21):
it their international titles and and championships in the past
eight years, So they've they've won it's their seventh world
title that they've won an eight years now. So this
is a team that's been kicking major ass for years.
And yet what was what was their pay situation? Like
their pay situation was was not good at all. So basically,

(02:43):
these amazingly talented, successful athletes were only getting paid a
thousand dollars a month in the six month lead up
to the Olympics, which is not a lot of money
at all. It's like if you have an annual conference
that you're preparing for, or once every four years you
have a big conference that you need to speak at,
sent your work to your industry. If you were only

(03:03):
getting paid once every four years in the six month
period leading up to that conference, that's actually what it's
like to be a professional woman on the hockey ice
in this country. Like you literally obviously have to practice
higher chain like and that's another thing. These women were
not getting paid the immense amount of time they spent
training practicing things like being you know, paid event or

(03:27):
not paid offense, paid speakers. They weren't getting paid or
compensated for the time that they spent promoting the team
at events and things like that, but the men were,
and so, in fairness um, their overarching organization, USA Hockey
did offer to bump that amount from one thousand dollars
a month to three dollars a month, But that's still
not a lot of money if you are, you know,

(03:47):
an athlete at the top of your game, and it's
certainly not what the men were being were being paid,
so which is not not fair. Well, it's such a
good lesson in negotiation and labor disputes. I think the
organizers in US be an I here like, are just
so riled up by this concept of Okay, the women's
hockey team made it very clear to USA Hockey what

(04:09):
they needed to be sustainable in their roles and what
they needed to change to feel equally valued. And we're
going to go into great detail and like exactly what
their demands were in a second. But to silence them
and try to put this negotiation to bed, they offered
to take that BS frame that they had already established,
which is, will pay you once every four years for

(04:29):
six months because already know, like what, I just can't
even believe that was how they dealt with hockey players
were at large and said we'll bump that up times three,
and the women were smart enough to say, no, no no, no,
we need to revisit this structurally because to back up, also,
they were paying the men only for those six months
leading up to the Olympics, but those men were making

(04:51):
like seven figure salaries in what most Americans know of
as professional hockey the NHL, right, and these female athletes
didn't don't have that that commercial life. You're a woman
who plays hockey, you know, at that level of the
United States, you unfortunately don't have the NHL to go
to for the rest of the time when you're playing
to make those to make money like that. And on

(05:11):
top of that, you know, hockey, just like any sport,
is physically demanding. If you get hurt, something happens to
your body if you're not making enough money, like it
sounds like a lot of these players were not able
to you know, make basic financial have basic financial comforts
like pen your red comfortably. If you get hurt, you're
kind of like out of luck. And so that's another

(05:32):
reason why it sort of bakes inequality and bakes unfairness
into the structure of the upper sport. So not to
play Devil's advocate, because nobody likes that, but there is
a part of me as a businesswoman who also looks
at the situation when it comes to commercial sports and

(05:52):
what American audiences will watch, and it makes me want
to say, like, you know, what the critics would say
here is well, of course there's no NHL for women's hockey.
Because no one would go to those games, and so
why should we bridget like have to overcompensate when the
market bears out from the value from male athletes in
the NHL. So like, how do you even begin unpacking that? Well?

(06:16):
I think that's a great point, but I also think,
I mean, it's not about I think that's I've heard
that argument a lot. You know the thing where it's like, oh,
who want to women basketball players that can't even dunk?
Like why would you want to watch it? And it's like, no,
they have good fundamental TBD. I grew up twenty minutes
outside of Yukon, and the women's Huskies are like the
women's Husky team, the basketball team there is so much

(06:36):
more popular and many than the men's team. Exactly give
them a platform, right right. And I went to University
of Maryland College Park, where are our female basketball team
is like their world champions are so good, Like they've
won many, many championships, And you know, it's what's that
is that you can't give those tickets away even though
they're very they're very successful. People aren't going when they

(06:57):
go to the men's team, which is less successful. Um.
And I also think it's about and I love that
the players you know, acknowledge this. It's about how we've
been taught to think about women athletes. And so one
of the disputes in their in their negotiations was that
they wanted for USA Hockey to put the same amount
of financial interests that they do in developing youth programs

(07:20):
for for young male players as they do with female players.
And so you know, USA Hockey spends about three point
five million dollars per year on developing boys hockey programs. Now,
they didn't actually disclose how much they spend on the
young women, but they said like, oh, we're really proud
of our program blah blah blah, which to me is like, oh,
you don't want to say because it's probably embarrassing nothing right, um.

(07:41):
And so I think it's things like that that will
ultimately help it so that culture exactly, so that people
don't immediately think like women hockey players watch right, Like
if we raise up you know, a generation of young
women who believe that playing you know, professional sports is cool,
and I think they can do with a thing that
will be respected that I think that's really the thing

(08:03):
that you know, yeah, we'll solve that, or we'll speak
to that problem. I also think the argument is null.
The argument is non. It's not even applicable to say
we should be able to pay you far less than
a living wage, although that's not quite where they're we're at,
but we should be able to pay you this garbage

(08:23):
wage once every four years because the men can take
this because they're taking money in the seven figures elsewhere,
Like the presupposition that you should have outside income that
makes paying you this less of an income or the
small of an income, is little of an income viable
for you, It doesn't matter. Like at the end of

(08:44):
the day, it's an employer employee situation, and if you're
not bringing to the table the kind of value to
keep your players sustainable, you're not setting them up for success.
And that's all they were asking for, right And I
think that's exactly right, right, Like they basically we're saying,
here is what we need to be successful at our
jobs where your employees we have a it's mutually beneficial

(09:05):
for us to do a good job. On the other
here's what we need to make that happen. And I
think it's completely be as for USA Hockey to be like, well,
we just can do it right, Like we expect you
to be great. We're gonna give you less than you
need to be great, but you better be great. That
doesn't work that way, yea. And also they are great,
so we're gonna eat less than what them Like, we're

(09:27):
gonna pay you so little and keep the expectations so high.
And it's just there aren't like the fact that there
aren't outside opportunities for them to make money like the
men do. Shouldn't shouldn't reduce the value that that employer
places on your work. They're great at their jobs just
because you know, we live in a society that that
does not, like has not historically valued their jobs the

(09:49):
same way as like what a man does not. It's
not their fault. It shouldn't be you know, penalized for that.
And a lot of times we've seen in other sports,
we've seen the argument say, well, that's why we pay
women less because they bring in less revenue. But the
perfect exception to that rule that would prove that theory,
you know, invalid, is the fact that even though historically

(10:10):
the US men's soccer team has been bringing in more revenue,
the US soccer team with the women. The US women's
soccer team not only brought home the championship and is
arguably higher performing than the current U s mails soccer team. Um,
but they brought in more money too, And still they
were making the case they had to argue and and

(10:32):
really push for proser quality in the same way that
the nwh L is doing. So it's not that all
of a sudden, your pay should be linked to your
revenue generating capacities. You know, what, how do you value
and treat your workers has to be based on what
you value their work at, playing example exactly. And I
think it's even a start to be talking about this
because they're so great, right, Like this idea that like

(10:54):
they can't bring in the money, they can't do that.
It's just for me. It's like, when you watch these
players play, it will be like talking about Serena Williams,
who's like one of my heroes, right, and talking about
talking about her in any way other than like she's
amazing and great and deserves whatever she's getting deserves more
like to me, is so absurd. So I want to
bring it back and talk a little bit about what
these players were domaining because they made their demands so clear,

(11:16):
and I think it's a great case study for how
we can advocate for ourselves on the job. But we'll
do that after a quick break. So we're talking about
how these women hockey players did such a great job
of advocating for themselves and you know, pay equality and
so one of the things I think they did exactly

(11:39):
right was really spelling out exactly what it is they want,
and which is like one on one how to organize
a labor strike. It's like how to make it clear
when you're having a labor dispute exactly what you need
from your employer to be willing to move forward, which
is a risky scary proposes is risky because you know,
I've actually been involved in were disputes where you lay

(12:02):
out something and they're like no, and then it's like okay,
well great like and either women who don't have a
lot of savings, they don't have a lot of savings,
and I think it's important to keep coming back to
this or not in a place where they can make money.
Right financially, they don't sound financially comfortable. But because I
haven't been put in a position to be right, So
what were they asking. They were asking for sixty sixty

(12:22):
eight thousand dollar base salary, which is basically the same
treatment that the men get. Um, they wanted the same
kind of perks for the job that the male players get,
which include things like the ability to bring a guest
to their competitions, which it seems so basically yes, but
if you were a hockey players like, oh, can my
parents come see me play? No, that's how disrespectful, right,

(12:44):
So it's a humanizing imagine if your daughter playing in
like the biggest, you know, the the highest level of
hockeys possibly can you can? You don't even get the
option to go see her because she they want to
make a buck off of you. That's so awful. And
then beyond that, they also asked for business class airfare,
which as a former college athlete who has seen the

(13:06):
kind of leg cramps that my former colleagues and teammates
would get because we were crammed into little vans. And
then we finally had to make the case like we
are not cramming our team into a tiny little van.
We are getting a bus, dang it, because we need
to actually have the room to not have leg cramps
when you're a professional athlete, I can only imagine, and

(13:29):
it just that's a completely like reasonable reasonable. It's not
like business class for the cocktails. It's like business class
because your body is part of your profession, right and
you need to keep it, you know, fine tuned. And
we also wanted disability insurance, which again like when you're
doing something physical. To me, that just seems like such
a no brainer and so it's so reasonable. Um. And

(13:51):
then they also wanted things like childcare and maternity leave
and the ability to compete in more games throughout the year,
and so, um, I think what's interesting about that is that,
like one, it makes sense that why you know, female
athletes would be advocating for things like a maternity lead.
But hopefully this means that the male players will be
getting paternity because, as we sort of unpacked an earlier episode, like,

(14:14):
the ability to take care of your kids is not
just a woman's you know, it's not just himmen's work.
If you're a parent, like everybody deserves to be able
to parent their children. Oh my gosh. You know what
this makes me think of is you've already raised Serena
Williams here and the news that just came out around
the fact that she was pregnant during her championship and

(14:35):
match like during her like match of a lifetime, which
of course she crushed it in one because the athlete
and so imagine being an athlete. That is your job,
that's how you make ends meet, that is your profession,
and you have to choose when to get pregnant or
you accidentally get or surprise you're pregnant. I mean, not

(14:59):
having the base the capacity to leave, to like not
put your unborn child in harm's way when your work
is that physical, and also to know that your job
is going to be there when you come back. I
mean that's like a career ender. Yeah, what's interesting about
that is that the whole Serrena Williams, And first of all,
I think that like the fact that she was able to,

(15:21):
you know, crush it at a competition like that, while
while pregnant is so great, but it really highlighted something
that I that I didn't know as someone that's not apparent,
which is that people who become pregnant there's such a
wide variety of like experistical things that you can do.
So I don't mind completely exhausted, right, Like my cousin
was like, oh, like I slept every night on our
I'm a couch downstairs because I physically couldnot make myself

(15:44):
climb the stairs to get into my bed, so I
just left on the couch every day of my pregnancy.
And some women are like, yeah, like I could probably
you know, go for a run or do something physical.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal. So I
found it very interesting that that revealed this like large
you know, yeah, large spectrum of especially that first trimester,

(16:05):
right right, we should do an episode online mystery trimester,
because I mean I've heard women who are like physically
ill and incapacitated from day one. But I mean, who cares, right,
it's still an incredible feat. I don't care if she
was right as rain Brad actually turned to ven he goes,
see no excuses when you're pregnant. I'm gonna be like
Venus William played in this championship. You like, No, that

(16:30):
is the wrong conclusion to draw from the incorrect like
l O L faith bomb. No, Um, what were we
talking about hockey? Right? This is like, don't get me started,
Let's do an episode. There's how she's the best and
another thing I love so much about what these women
were after in their contract, with the fact that they

(16:51):
wanted to make sure they baked in this this provision
for funding for girls youth hockey. I am this theory
that you're a feminist, you're a woman who is inspiring
other women. It's really important to It's not about just
you getting yours, it's about making sure those that come
behind you get there's too, And I think, you know,

(17:12):
I'm just so happy to see that that was a
big part of this dispute, and it really does. It's
not just about you know, this individual team of women,
It's about the larger understanding of how we think about
women and how we think about you know, girls, and
how we think about the you know, the society totally
and you know, lived as you climb as a big
mantra of ours at bost Up that I've always really

(17:33):
believed in because it's not about one woman being exceptionally great.
It's about all women having the same opportunity as all men.
Right that I think is such a corner stone of feminism.
I went to the National Museum of African American History
and Culture and saw a banner that said lift as
you climb and I said, what, like little did I
realize that that motto has been around for a long

(17:56):
as a long time, all the way back from eighteen.
It was the motto of the National Association of Colored
Women's Clubs, which was founded by you know, really early feminists,
like folks like I B. Wells, as an organization for women.
And I do I think that motto is so key
to sort of drive home that idea of like intersectionality
among women, that it's not about one woman getting you know,

(18:20):
one job or one woman getting one good thing. It's
about opportunity for all women. And I think the NHL
or n w h L was so on point and
thoughtful about how they were paving the way to make
this not just a change that would serve them immediately,
but paving the way for more women to rise up
in the national hockey world. So I think that's a

(18:42):
really critical point. And we're going to talk through exactly
how those needs and those demands were met or you
don't know yet by the folks on the other end
of the bargaining table when we come right back from
this quick break. So, like many labor disputes, this list

(19:09):
of demands was not met immediately with great fanfare from
the higher up. So management over at the USA Hockey
Association first really tried to get around meeting these demands
until the women on the hockey team actually said, listen,
here are going to be the ramifications if you don't

(19:31):
take our demand seriously. There was a huge game coming up.
It's probably the biggest, the most major tournament that they have.
It's the ice the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship game,
which I know was a outful, but it's the big
it's the biggest tournament they have. And these players were like,
you know, we're gonna sit out. This major game is
not gonna happen. And they've been having this labor dispute

(19:51):
for since two thousand, but this was the first time
they had threatened to, you know, sit out and like
boycott in this way seventeen years they even have. Wow.
So they've and they haven't added. They've tried everything, and
this is an important lesson for those of us in
the labor movement to remember that, you know, threats without
action are not going to necessarily yield the right results.

(20:12):
So they made it clear what they needed to continue,
and then they said listen, we're going to boycott our game.
And they didn't just do it alone, did they. They
didn't do it alone. Which again we like talk craft
about men and the patriarchy a lot, but shout out
to the men out there, because not only did they
get support from the Major League Baseball Players Association, but
also the US men's hockey team was reportedly planning on

(20:34):
possibly sitting at this big championship game because support the women,
which is such a great example of he for she
hashtag for she from mL Watson sort of u N conversation,
but also you know, broadening this issue to be about fairness,
about basic fairness and equality and it's not Mimi me,
this is what I need and want. This is a

(20:55):
value statement for all of us here at the USA
Hockey Association, but we value and how we treat our workers.
When they got them in on board, and there were
leaders in on the women's team who made it very
clear that this is not about us a women's hockey
This is about equal pay for equal war right. And
I think that that that you just underscored why I
think this was a successful campaign is that, um, the

(21:19):
US women's team captain Meghan Duggan she really by underscoring
the idea that this isn't about just this team, it's
about fairness for the entire sport, she was able to
release thwart USA Hockey's attempts to bring in scab players,
and so when they were so a scab player is
someone that if people are boycotting, you know, you bring
in this is a negative term for it, but you

(21:40):
bring in a replacement player. While someone took the term
right like short term contract to just get through the
game that you need to get through without actually having
to give your workers what they're asking for, which is
traditionally a big part of how labor disputes um go down.
It's the whole idea of like you might have heard
the phrase like don't cross the picket line, it's that
idea of saying, I know these workers are on strike,

(22:01):
but I need a paycheck, so I'm just gonna go
work for the boss person um and be that's a
scab workers and who they were recruiting. So they were
recruiting so dozen the players and dozens of high school
including high school players were saying yeah, people reached out
to me to see if I would play in this
championship just to get them through the game, and I
won't because it's about fess about fairness for the solidarity.

(22:24):
What a great example of like striking working total solidarity
by making sure and Dugan or Dugan reached out and
made it really clear. She brought a lot of people
to the table and said, this is more than it's
bigger than us. This is about, you know, standing up
for workers everywhere. And she got people on board and
she galvanized support um and the whole team you know,

(22:46):
acted like a team about it, and that solidarity goes
a long way. I love that you just said that
because it really is about teamwork. Like I know it
sounds kind of you know, pie in the sky, but
it's it's about it's about when you play a sport,
it is a out you know, the team. And like
she just drove home that message that like, this is
not about me, this is about the entire the entire

(23:07):
unit um. And so luckily this three days before under
the Wire, you can just tell that they were like,
we have to we have to figure this out, right,
So like they were able to come up with a
deal three days before this major tournament, and the players,
luckily they got what they were asking for, they were

(23:30):
snapping in the studio. So they ended up getting a
four year deal. And that deal really is you know,
it's not it's a it's a win for them. This
steal includes the formation of the Women's High Performance Advisory
Group to help advise women and girls hockey at youth levels.
It also involves providing female players with travel and insurance provisions.

(23:50):
Um that it's equal to what the men get. And
so again I think it's so important that like they
just wanted what was their They just wanted with their
with their male counterboards are already getting. And this is
on the heels of an agreement that was already just
struck this year in a totally different sport with squash
between men and women in the Squash Federation question mark,

(24:12):
like whatever the national squash you know, hang out might
be your squash squad whatever that is, Um, that is
a sport where gender pay equality has been set in stone, right,
an agreement was made this year. Yeah, And so I
mean thinking about pay equality and sports, think about that,
like only this year, inv have we sort of normalized

(24:34):
I won't even go that far. Like that to me
is just a sign of I mean This is great,
but it's just a sign of how far it is
that we have to come on this issue. And I
would say the one shortfall of their agreement with the
national with the USA Hockey is that it's a four
year deal. Right, This isn't set in stone. They can
totally go back on their word in four years and

(24:54):
hopefully it won't come to that. But this was a
seventeen year fight that yielded a four year So Lucian
Jeeze put it that way. I think that there's something
to be said about making it set in stone that
pay quality is what we're advocating. We're not a contract,
right like across the board, a baked in deal that's
that's fair for all involved, right. Um. And so what

(25:14):
I what I love is like the cherry on top
of this story of victory, a big victory for these
women what ended up happening with their with their tournament,
that they snuck them this deal and was able to
play it right down to the wire three days before
It's April seen and the US is in the final
you know, National Global International Championship round. Um. Clearly they

(25:38):
have specific names for these rounds and losing not really
really big special game. It's the sport with the with
the puck, right, yeah, that one. So it's April, they're
fresh on the heels of victory and people were freaking out.
They were saying, do you think contract negotiations three days

(25:59):
before your giant game is very good for the mindset
of a player. I can't imagine that. It's like, your
head's not really in the game if you're negotiating your contract,
you know what I mean? Like three days before big
game day is when they finally put the ink was
drying on their contract. And of course, like true badass,
fierce boss athletes that they are, the US defeated Canada

(26:22):
in the gold medal game three to two after overtime winning.
Oh you know, just a casual eighth title. So we
added a clap sound there, right, we need like a
clap effect. Um. I think it's just a good sort
of moral. The story here is that they can win
it in the boardroom and win it on the ice.

(26:46):
I love that winning in the boardroom and on the ice. Yes,
love it. I love it. I think that's such a
good lesson for women everywhere when it comes to doing
your job well and also taking care of your business,
like no one's going to advocate for you, accept you,
and sometimes it might even come down to a total
labor dispute, a well executed strike, widening the issue to

(27:07):
ask for other stakeholders to help back you up when needed,
you know, talking to the workers who are you know,
being brought in behind your back or threatened to broaden
be brought in behind your back, and then you can
still do your job. You can still do your job
and crush and crush it even while you're busy advocating
for what you need to be sustainable in crushing it.

(27:27):
I love it, and I think another good takeaway from
this awesome campaign it's this idea that you don't have
to let this, like let an awful precedent stop you
from advocating for what you want right like this has
been the way it is years. I can imagine being like, oh, well,
if you want to be a woman, you know, hockey player,
you just have to deal with this. You know this, this,

(27:48):
this is, this is how it is, and not not
really not letting that stomp you from going after what
you want. I hear that all the time at boss
Stop with women I'm working with who say, well, no, Actually,
we can't do that in my special snowflake of an
office because in my workplace we can't you know, we
can't have those conversations. We can't ask for what we want.
I'm like, listen, no one's going to roll out the

(28:10):
red carpet for you to demand what you need. And
if anything, people are going to make it hard. They're
invested in you believing that yeah, they're powerless and that
nothing can change. And what's that quote. The biggest way
that we give away our power is by we don't
have any and that I want to say Alice Walker. Yes, definitely,
Alice Walker. Yes, nice work. Thank you Feminist Studies for

(28:31):
the wind. If that was a sport, If feminist studies
was a sport, you'd be the champion. I would win.
It would be Serena when all the Serena Williams, the
feminist of Women's Studying Feminism, Full Contact Feminism coming to
a podcast near you. Hello, I love it all right, listeners, Well,

(28:52):
we hope that you enjoyed learning about this story or
hearing again. Our interpretation are creative interpretation of the story
as much as we loved researching it. And uh, let's
all give some major, well deserved snaps the women of
the n w h L. Get your tickets today, sign
up for their email lists, and go support women athletes

(29:15):
advocating for themselves and kicking ass in their uh in
their athletic endeavors. We want to hear from you, of course,
on this topic. What did you think about how they
managed to work their negotiation aagle? Do you feel like
they took us too far? Do you feel like boycotting
their championship game was the right move? Was the wrong move?

(29:36):
It was undoubtedly a risky move, um, but make sure
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We can't wait to hear from you at mom Stuff,
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