January 29, 2015

Lawmaker: Cheerleaders Should Get Paid a Real Wage

The Raiderettes perform in a December game against the Buffalo Bills.Daniel Gluskoter/Cal Sports Media/ZUMAPress

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While football fans are getting ready for the Super Bowl this weekend, California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) has turned her attention to the women on the sidelines. Gonzalez, a former cheerleader and labor leader, introduced a bill today that would require California’s professional sports teams to classify cheerleaders as employees, thus forcing teams to provide minimum wage, paid overtime, and workers compensation.

The bill was inspired by a spate of lawsuits last year in which NFL cheerleaders sued their teams for workplace violations. The first lawsuit, Lacy T. et al vs. The Oakland Raiders, exposed a “stunning system of abuses against cheerleaders,” says Gonzalez, including sub-minimum wage pay, unpaid practices and appearances, and fines for things like bringing the wrong pom-poms to practice. According to an ESPN the Magazine article, a Raiderettes handbook simply says that it’s possible to “find yourself with no salary at all at the end of the season.” (Read more of our coverage of the indignities of NFL cheerleaders here, and of NHL’s ice girls here).

“NFL teams and their billionaire owners have used professional cheerleaders as part of the game day experience for decades.  They have capitalized on their talents without providing even the most basic workplace protections like a minimum wage,” Gonzalez said in a statement. Reached by phone, she added, “Nobody would never, ever question that the guy who brings you beer is going to get minimum wage, but we’re not gonna pay the woman on the field who’s entertaining you?” Asked whether she was concerned about pushback from NFL teams, she replied, “I don’t think it’s a good PR move for the NFL to be opposing minimum wage for women’s workers. Let’s be honest.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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