Brian Wakamo: A legal victory for America’s most dominant pro-sports team

A ticker tape parade in Manhattan celebrating the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s 2015 World Cup victory.

Via OtherWords.org

Three years ago, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team filed a $24 million gender-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. This May, after a prolonged and public battle, the players association for the U.S. women’s and men’s national teams negotiated a groundbreaking collective bargaining agreement.

The agreement enshrines a number of new protections for both teams. But most importantly, the agreement creates equal pay structures and requires the U.S. Soccer Federation to share World Cup prize money equally between both the men and women’s national teams.

It’s a first for any soccer federation in the world — and an inspiring victory for fairness in any industry.

Consider the women’s team’s impressive record — which includes four World Cup wins, four Olympic gold medals, and FIFA’s world No. 1 ranking for five straight years. The men’s team, by comparison, failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2018 and hasn’t made the quarterfinals or better in the World Cup since 2002.

Under the previous rules, had the men’s team qualified in 2018, they would have likely received first-round exit prize money worth $8 million — double what the women’s team took home for winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup.

Now the two teams will get equal pay for equal success.

This agreement would not have been possible without decades of tireless activism from players who have decried the double standards present in U.S. and global soccer.

Whether it was turning their warm-up jerseys inside out to obscure the U.S. Soccer Federation crests or kneeling in support of racial justice, the U.S. women’s team embodies a culture of protest that reflects the ongoing struggles of women and marginalized groups across the world.

It’s not hard to see the parallels in the broader economy.

Men, for example, make up an overwhelming majority of top earners across the U.S. economy, even though women now represent almost about the country’s workforce. At the top 0.1 percent level, women make up only 11 percent.

But there’s another important parallel in how the teams corrected this imbalance: unions.

This equal pay for equal success victory could not have been achieved without the collective strength and solidarity that a union provides. By coming together in their contract negotiations, the men’s and women’s teams both inspire and benefit each other.

In the latest collective-bargaining agreement, for example, athletes on the men’s national team will now have access to paid child care, a benefit the women’s team has enjoyed for over 25 years. This agreement is a testament to how everyone can win when you fight for those at the bottom.

Even beyond soccer and beyond the United States, the contract is groundbreaking.

It provides a roadmap to equity for other national sports teams, like basketball and hockey, which face similar challenges. It could also be replicated in places like France or Germany, where teams have an even higher level of success and larger budgets than the U.S. Soccer Federation.

But it’s also a roadmap for those of us who aren’t professional athletes.

As unionization efforts take flight at Starbucks, Amazon, and other big, profitable employers, America’s most dominant national sports team is showing how the workers who make companies successful can claim their fair share of the rewards.

Goal!

Brian Wakamo is an Inequality Research Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies and a co-editor of Inequality.org.

Brian Wakamo: Sports walkouts: Imagine what an Amazon strike could do

Via OtherWords.org

First, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court in their playoff game against the Orlando Magic. Then other teams followed suit, leading to a three-day wildcat strike in the National Basketball Association.

The Bucks were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in nearby Kenosha, Wis., but they helped ignite a wave of athletic activism for racial justice. Other leagues followed suit.

Players in the women’s NBA, who often lead athlete protests, joined the strike. Some Major League Baseball teams — including the Milwaukee Brewers — refused to play multiple games as well. So did Major League Soccer players.

And Naomi Osaka, two-time tennis Grand Slam winner, announced she would not play her semi-final match as a protest. She next appeared wearing a face mask with Breonna Taylor’s name on it.

It was a seismic moment in the history of sports.

We’ve seen players use their platform to advocate for social justice, going all the way back to Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King. And we’ve seen players strike for better collective bargaining agreements.

What’s new are these labor actions for social justice — especially across multiple sports and leagues. It’s unprecedented.

These shows of strength and solidarity had immediate consequences, including at the NBA offices, where around 100 employees struck in solidarity. Within a few days, NBA owners and players announced a raft of initiatives to improve voter access in NBA arenas and to invest in a joint social justice coalition among coaches, players, and owners.

As these athletes have shown, striking does not need to be reserved exclusively for higher wages or a better contract. NBA players have a strong players union and an incredibly well negotiated collective bargaining agreement, but they knew they had the power to amplify a national conversation about police violence. It’s inspiring that they chose to use it.

It’s also an inspiring story about the power of all workers.

Few workers are as well paid as professional athletes, and most have more to lose from running afoul of their employers. But there’s a lesson here for them, too: Workers make the company run, not the CEOs and owners. Withholding that work can force immense changes.

After all, if a handful of athletes refusing to play can yield such immediate results, imagine what would happen if long-suffering, underpaid Amazon or Wal-Mart workers — or both — pulled off a national strike. They could virtually shut down the economy and win the fair treatment they’ve been demanding for years.

That’s what postal workers did in a 1970 postal strike, which completely halted all mail deliveries, even as President Nixon attempted to use the National Guard to deliver the mail. Nixon failed miserably, and postal workers won collective-bargaining rights, higher wages and the four postal unions we have today.

As for those well-paid athletes? I hope they’ll force their employers to take tangible steps in other fights — like for racial justice, a fairer immigration system, and action on climate change.

These athletes just showed us all a path forward. I hope more workers are inspired by their example.

Brian Wakamo is an inequality researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Brian Wakamo: NBA's China fiasco shows what's most important to business

From OtherWords.org

The NBA has gotten itself into a bit of a situation.

On Oct. 4, acclaimed Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the continuing protests in Hong Kong. His simple, two-sentence tweet (which has since been deleted) has prompted an unlikely controversy

The owner of the Rockets, Tilman Fertitta, quickly denounced his general manager’s tweet, saying it does not speak for the organization and emphasizing that the Rockets are, resoundingly, not a political organization.

Why did Fertitta condemn his own manager? The replies to his tweet offer a clue.

Nearly all come from Chinese nationals warning that if Morey isn’t fired, the Rockets will lose the entire Chinese market. Fertitta himself may agree, as evidenced by his liking Instagram comments calling for Morey’s ouster. Reports suggest the Rockets have internally discussed this option.

Firing one of the most successful general managers in the NBA over the past decade may seem absurd. But the Rockets are the most popular NBA team in China — and, as many businesses have found, that market share can put a lot of pressure on political speech well outside of the country.

By now the Rockets have lost business deal after business deal in China, drawn a condemnation from the Chinese consulate in Houston, and jeopardized their status in the country.

The NBA hasn’t exactly been supportive of Morey either. In a bland statement, Commissioner Adam Silver offered only very tepid backing.

Meanwhile ,Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai — a co-founder of Chinese retail giant Alibaba — put out a long statement describing Hong Kong’s protests as a “separatist movement.”

In an especially disappointing statement, superstar LeBron James seemed to suggest Morey — who has been doing business in China for over a decade — was “misinformed” about the situation in Hong Kong.

American politicians from across the spectrum, on the other hand, have been much more supportive.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted in support of Morey, while fellow Republicans Rick Scott and Josh Hawley demanded answers from the NBA. Democratic presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke, Julián Castro, and Elizabeth Warren all condemned the response from the league as well.

Yet this groundswell of support from American politicians will likely only inflame the critical response from China.

China has long been attempting to regulate foreign free speech via economic pressure.

Many movie studios, like Disney’s Marvel outfit, have altered scripts to prevent films from being boycotted in the Chinese market. Google has repeatedly censored its searches to appease the Chinese government, while Twitter has suspended accounts which are critical of China.

This pattern extends even further. China’s government often pays Chinese student associations on college campuses to boost Chinese state visits — and to criticize any sentiment seen as anti-China. In many cases, the Chinese government has harassed even non-Chinese academics who criticize the state.

Among major sports leagues, the NBA often brands itself as the most woke. LeBron James has consistently stood up for the Black Lives Matter movement, and once called President Trump a “bum.”

But the league has long been happy to take Chinese money and sponsorships, especially since Yao Ming was drafted by the same Houston Rockets years ago. And progressive politics hardly dominate there besides — Tilman Fertitta has even proclaimed his support for Trump’s policies.

Still, the obvious prioritization of commercial ties with a government that’s attacking demonstrators in Hong Kong and putting millions of ethnic Uyghurs in concentration camps is a damning statement about what the league — and the economic system it operates in — truly values.

Brian Wakamo is a researcher on the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Brian Wakamo: Past time to unionize the NCAA!

From OtherWords.org

When Zion Williamson’s foot broke through the sole of his Nike shoe on Feb. 20, the sporting world stood still.

The consensus number one player in college basketball was playing in the biggest game of the season — North Carolina versus Duke — and suffered his startling injury in the opening minute. Williamson’s sprained knee cost Nike $1.1 billion in stock market valuation the next day.

The injury came on the doorstep of March Madness, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s most profitable event of the year — to the tune of $900 million in revenue.

Despite the billions riding on his performance, the NCAA insists that athletes like Williamson are “amateurs” — student-athletes there only for the love of the game. It forbids them to make money off their performance, even as they support an industry worth billions. Duke alone makes $31 million off its basketball program.

Williamson has been a force of nature this season, captivating audiences and NBA scouts alike. Enticing those NBA scouts is the only way this 18-year-old can build his own future career — and any sort of injury imperils that future.

High-level “student-athletes,” after all, don’t get to spend much time being students.

They’re supposed to only spend 20 hours a week on sports-related activities. In reality, they spend around 40 hours on practice alone. Schoolwork falls by the wayside, so many schools have outside tutors do the players’ schoolwork and by create classes-in-name-only where the only requirement is to turn in a paper.

A few years ago, some former athletes at the University of North Carolina sued the school and the NCAA, claiming they’d been denied a meaningful education. It’s hard to argue with that.

The athletes, in exchange for scholarships, give these schools their lives and put their health at risk. Concussions of football players have sparked lawsuits, and an injury like Williamson’s could cost a player millions in the professional leagues. If they can’t go pro — and their education didn’t do them any favors — what option do they have?

That risk is where the travesty lies. These thousands of athletes who play in the NCAA are often not allowed to enjoy the benefits of the schools they attend (and enrich). If they’re not able to make use of their education, they should be paid for the work they put in.

When college sports revenues are as high as they’ve ever been, the failure to pay the athletes is absurd — but not surprising.

Inequality of all kinds is on the rise, and the gap between the top and bottom of the pay scale is the highest since the Gilded Age of the late 1800’s and early 1900s. The NCAA not allowing athletes to be paid — or even sign autographs for money! — is an extension of an economy where unions are busted and people have to work three jobs to make ends meet.

It needs to change. College basketball players are on average worth $212,080 to their program, much more than the cost of their scholarships.

Schools should pay these athletes a share of the revenue their sport brings in. And the NCAA needs to, at the very least, allow for these people to make money selling autographs or appearing at sports camps.

Just as importantly, athletes should be allowed to unionize their teams and fight for their own rights.

Billions of dollars are going to be spent on betting on March Madness games. CBS and Turner paid around $19 billion for the television rights to the tournament. And over $1 billion in advertising is spent on the tournament.

This event is all about the money. We should spread it around to the people who make it worthwhile.

Brian Wakamo is a researcher on the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Brian Wakamo: Get a lot of federal offices out of Washington

Downtown Milwaukee, a good place to add federal offices to serve the Midwest.

Via OtherWords.org

Americans of all political stripes distrust the federal government.

For years, the name of the nation’s capital has been used as shorthand for federal overreach and bloat. For most Americans, Washington, D.C. is hundreds of miles away — and a million ways disconnected — from them.

The Washington area is home to hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, and many unpopular agencies. But agencies that are more spread out, like the Postal Service, are significantly more popular.

So here’s a simple idea: Move more of the federal government to the rest of the country.

Studies show that once you get to know people different from you, your prejudice towards them drops. Could that same approach also bridge the deep disconnect between Americans and their national government?

One way to sweeten the pot would be the promise of tens of thousands of jobs to areas that need them.

A geographically diverse federal government would be bolstered by the Green New Deal program championed by progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Bringing back past agencies, like the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, to help build green infrastructure would help transition this country off fossil fuels and into a sustainable future. It would guarantee jobs, maybe good union jobs, for countless workers.

A new Works Progress Agency could establish offices in places like Milwaukee, where it could build a long-discussed high-speed rail line connecting the cities of the Midwest. Or in Phoenix, where it could construct more solar-power plants in the desert. It could set up in places like Jackson, Miss., helping to build sustainable co-op farms, or on the Gulf Coast, to fight climate change.

Similarly, a single-payer, Medicare for All health service would also need to have offices in communities. It would create health care jobs in places often abandoned by providers, boosting economies and bringing affordable care to millions.

Meanwhile, reintroducing postal banking would bolster Post Office finances and bring banking to millions of underbanked Americans.

There’s another benefit to all this: the revitalization of our heartland cities. Midwestern cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee are full of classical architecture and cultural amenities, but have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs from the erosion of manufacturing. New federal jobs could reverse decades of decline in these grand cities.

Why stop there?

The National Weather Service could move to New Orleans or another area impacted by the climate change they study. The U.S. Geological Survey could move out to Sacramento, which knows something about earthquakes. Agencies that deal with farming and rural development could set up in Farm Belt areas like Kansas City, where they’d be more attuned to the people they serve.

Spreading out the federal government would help rebuild the trust that’s eroded in recent years and provide jobs that are unionized, well-paying, and accessible to people often excluded from the broader economy.

Decentralizing government is popular across the political spectrum, and the federal government is bogged down by its centralization in D.C. Why not put it more in line with its original mission — to be of the people, by the people — and bring it to the people that need it most?

Brian Wakamo is a research assistant at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Brian Wakamo: We subsidize the wrong kind of agriculture

-- Photo by Sstevenson24

From OtherWords.org

Summer: the season of barbecues, baseball games, and backyard fun. It’s also the time of year when the American farming industry comes into full swing producing the crops we hold near and dear.

The pastoral ideal of golden fields of corn and wheat is what comes to mind for most people, and they’d be on the right track. Corn, soybeans, and wheat are the three biggest crops grown in this country, and — along with cows, pigs, and chicken — make up the bulk of our farming output.

There’s a reason for this: The federal government heavily subsidizes those products. In fact, the bulk of U.S. farming subsidies go to only 4 percent of farms — overwhelmingly large and corporate operations — that grow these few crops.

For the most part, that corn, soy, and wheat doesn’t even go to feed our populace. More of it goes into the production of ethanol — which is also heavily subsidized — and into the mouths of those cows, pigs, and chickens stuffed into feedlots. Those grains purchased by the feedlots are also federally subsidized, allowing producers to buy grains at below market prices.

When we do eat these foods, they’re sold back to us in unhealthy forms, pumped full of high fructose corn syrup and growth hormones. Large corporate farms and feedlots also poison waterways, drain aquifers, and pollute the air.

Meanwhile, small farmers continue to go broke, thanks to the low cost of foods subsidized by the government for corporate buyers. Even the few companies that provide seeds and equipment for farmers receive their own tax breaks from state governments, while farmers are stuck with the bill of goods sold to them from companies like John Deere and Monsanto.

Does this help feed America? Not really: We still buy most of our food from far-flung places. So why is our government subsidizing this production model?

Plain and simple: Corporations buy these subsidies for pennies on the dollar.

In 2011, the agribusiness industry spent around $100 million to lobby and campaign for federal support. They got billions in subsidies in return, making them the biggest recipients of corporate welfare.

This is disgraceful. Why should our government support big businesses that poison us and our environment?

Congress is now considering a new Farm Bill. The recently shot-down first draft cut funding for rural development and conservation programs, while opening up loopholes for corporate farms to access more subsidies. That should open the field for newer, better ideas.

All politicians champion small businesses, especially those in the heartland where most agricultural production takes places. If they’re going to subsidize agriculture, why not give more support to family farms, which often farm more sustainably and grow much healthier foods?

Instead of supporting factory farms and mono-crops, we could provide incentives for crop rotations, reduced usage of pesticides and herbicides, pasture-raised meat, and organic practices. Studies show that practices like organic farming produce only marginally less than conventional farms.

These practices are a part and parcel of a growing segment of the agricultural industry bolstered by health and environmentally conscious consumers. Farmers who sell their products at farmers markets and through community supported agriculture groups should be heralded and paid for their support of the community.

This could also lower the costs of healthier foods, which often are priced prohibitively for the people who need them most. Expanding the market for food farmed sustainably and ethically grown would benefit all consumers — and address the health crisis brought on by the mass consumption of unhealthy foods.

Why should we subsidize things that harm us all when we can help out the farmers who support a better life and environment for us all?

Brian Wakamo is a Next Leader on the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.