Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week: N.F.L. Cheerleader Wage & Hour Lawsuit Edition - Revisited (10/9)


Given the article I posted on the Milwaukee Bucks cheerleader's wage and hour suit (From Pom Poms to the Courtroom: Milwaukee Bucks Edition), I thought this would be a good time to highlight some articles on the N.F.L. cheerleaders who have brought suit and requested they be classified as employees and paid minimum wage.  

As always, below are a few articles that caught my eye this week.



Cheerleader Lawsuits: Are They Having an Impact?

The New York Times has an interesting look at the wage and hour claims brought by a host of N.F.L. cheerleaders over the past year or so.  As the article notes, California has passed a bill that designates cheerleaders as employees rather than independent contractors, with legislators in New York considering similar legislation.  From what it appears, these wage and hour suits are starting to have an impact.  Very interesting to see how things have progressed.


Lawmakers Attempt to Push N.F.L. to Act on Minimum Wage Issue

Interesting recap from The Guardian on the N.F.L. cheerleader lawsuits.  I wanted to highlight this article in part because of the attention it pays to the efforts by Congressmen from Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California, and Maryland to take steps to resolve the minimum wage issues that have been raised by these cheerleaders.  Well worth a read.


A Closer Look at New York's Legislation to Help Cheerleaders

Buffalo's NPR News Station has a very good look at the legislation introduced by State Senator Diane Savino that would prevent N.F.L. teams from classifying the cheerleaders as independent contractors.  If these cheerleaders in the state were classified as employees, they would be entitled to minimum wage and the protections offered by the FLSA.  Time will tell if this measure passes, but it certainly has put the issue in the forefront.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more