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What I’ve Been Reading This Week


This week, we have a little something for everyone.  Whether you are you interested in equal pay matters, potentially new discrimination protections, or the possible expansion of labor unions in the tech field, I think the three articles listed below will provide readers with good reading material.

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


U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Files Gender Discrimination Suit

Two weeks ago, 28 team members of the U.S. Women’s National Team filed a gender discrimination suit against the U.S. Soccer Federation on the grounds that the U.S. Soccer Federation was engaged in “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the women’s team.  The suit alleges that the U.S. Soccer Federation has violated the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by paying members of the men’s soccer team more than their female counterparts for the same job responsibilities.  Of note, the U.S. Soccer Federation is the employer of both the men’s and women’s national teams. The suit seeks class action status, which, if granted, would allow any member of the women’s team that played since February 2015 to join the class.  Needless to say, the number of plaintiffs in this suit could extend well beyond the current 28.  It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.


West Virginia Democratic Senator (Currently) Withholding Support For LGBTQ Equality Act

Despite mounting pressure from fellow Democrats, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced on Monday that he was still not willing to support the Equality Act, which would extend federal protections to workers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  He remains the lone holdout among Democrats.  His reason for withholding support?  He believes the Equality Act, as currently written, does not provide local officials that would be charged with enforcing the Act sufficient guidance for how to actually enforce it.  With that being said, Senator Manchin affirmed he supports equality for all workers and does not believe that discrimination of any kind should be tolerated.  Whether Senator Manchin can get to ‘yes’ on the Equality Act remains to be seen.   For the time being, however, he appears to be a firm ‘no’.


Kickstarter On the Verge Of Becoming First Major Unionized Tech Company

Benjamin Goggin over at Business Insider wrote a recent article in which he noted that employees at tech company Kickstarter are in the process of forming a union, after announcing intentions to do so this past Tuesday.  The union, Kickstarter United, aims to secure more rights for the company’s workers.  (For those unfamiliar with Kickstarter, the Brooklyn based company maintains a global crowdfunding platform.  In plain English, the company allows users to create and donate money to creative projects of other users, such as film, art, writing, and other related endeavors.  The company reports raising over $4 billion in donations from over 15.5 backers to fund approximately 257,000 projects.).  This unionization effort is noteworthy as the employees are seeking to make Kickstarter the first major unionized tech company.  At this time, it is unclear whether Kickstarter will recognize the union, only going so far as to say the company is interested in hearing the employees’ concerns.  Should the company fight the unionization effort, this could turn into a drawn out fight.

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