Winston & Strawn Helps Secure True Equal Pay for U.S. Women’s National Team Soccer Players

A Winston & Strawn team led by Jeffrey Kessler entered into an equal pay, class-action settlement for the members of the Women’s National Team in soccer, which has now led to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the Women’s National Team and the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), implementing the equal pay remedy agreed to in the class-action settlement.

Under the landmark CBA—covered in Law360 and The 19th News—the women’s and men’s teams will be compensated at an equal rate of pay, will equally split any prize money won in the FIFA World Cup, and will collect equal appearance fees, game bonuses, and shares of commercial revenue. The litigation settlement also provided for equal treatment in working conditions such as travel, accommodations, staff support, and quality of playing fields.

Winston has represented the U.S. Women’s National Team since 2016, when it filed the EEOC charge of discrimination that initiated the legal proceedings and thereafter filed the class action in federal court in Los Angeles in March 2019. The team secured a $24 million class-action settlement and an agreement to provide equal pay in all future games in February of this year. That equal pay agreement has now been implanted in the CBA entered into by the USSF and the Women’s National Team Players Association.

“The CBA is the culmination of the agreement that was included in our litigation settlement that required that the new CBA provide for equal pay in all matches inducing the World Cup,” Jeffrey told Law360. “I am absolutely delighted to have been a small part of this effort with these incredible women and their union to get to this point.”

In conversation with The 19th News, Jeffrey remarked that “[e]quality goes both ways,” as the agreement also guarantees child care for the men’s team—a guarantee that was exclusively given to the women’s team for the past 25 years. “Equality does not mean that men are disadvantaged, it makes for equal opportunity for everyone.”

The Winston team included Jeffrey Kessler, Cardelle Spangler, David Feher, Jeanifer Parsigian, Diana Hughes Leiden, and Scott Sherman.

Read more about the U.S. Women’s National Team’s journey to equality here.