Thanks to what is believed to be first of its kind legislation, legal minimum wages and worker protections may be on the horizon for California’s professional cheerleaders.
A bill proposed by State Rep. Lorena Gonzalez (D) in January, and approved by the Senate on Monday, requires California sports teams to adhere to state and federal minimum wage requirements and to provide overtime pay and sick leave to professional cheerleaders.
Despite the athletic skill and training required for participation in professional-level cheering — plus the branding and visual expectations that come along with acting as the public face of a sports team — cheerleaders are often considered independent contractors and therefore are not protected by minimum wage and other labor standards.
This is particularly jarring considering professional cheerleaders act as some of the most public symbols for leagues like the NFL, which is worth over $33 billion, according to recent estimates.
“A.B. 202 would explicitly require that professional sports teams provide cheerleaders with the same rights and benefits as other employees, protecting against the sort of financial and personal abuses that have been reported throughout the country,” said Gonzalez, who is a former college cheerleader herself, in an April press release. “A.B. 202 simply demands that any professional sports team — or their chosen contractor — treat the women on the field with the same dignity and respect that we treat the guy selling beer.”
A similar bill has been proposed in New York State, but Gonzalez’s will be the first to hit a governor’s desk. Both measures come as a response to a string of lawsuits brought against NFL teams over the last two years. The first suit was brought by a former Oakland Raiders cheerleader who claims that she and other members of the cheer team were paid less than $5.00 an hour and were denied overtime and other benefits associated with standard labor laws.
In bringing the lawsuit against the Raiders, attorney Sharon Vinik dismissed the team’s justification for the contractor status of the cheer squad, stating that the NFL team dictated the choreography and music used by the cheerleaders among other strict limitations. The defense also rejected the common claim that the opportunity to cheer for a professional team opened up other doors such as endorsements and modeling, and therefore acted as a career stepping stone.
“If you are a young starting quarterback, you get lot of notoriety for that, but you also get paid for that work,” said Vinik at the time. “The fact that the women might get some opportunities doesn’t justify not paying them.”
According to the Associated Press, Vinik thinks the new California legislation is a good step, but one that may not be big enough to actually change the payment culture surrounding professional cheerleading.
The Raiderette’s lawsuit was followed by similar legal complaints from other teams, including cheerleaders from the Buffalo Jills cheer squad, who claim that they were not paid for up to 20 hours of their weekly work with the Buffalo-based NFL team.
While the new California legislation may be a step in the right direction, the vast majority of professional sports teams and states have yet to address the significant wage gap and labor violations associated with the professional cheerleading industry.
This blog was originally posted on July 1, 2015 on Think Progress. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: The author’s name is Katelyn Harrop. Katelyn Harrop is a summer intern at ThinkProgress. She is a rising senior at Ithaca College, where she is pursuing a B.A. in journalism and a minor in international politics. Katelyn is an editor for Buzzsaw Magazine, Ithaca College’s independent, student-run publication, and a staff writer for the community radio station in Ithaca, New York. Katelyn is originally from McMinnville, Oregon.
