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Do NFL Cheerleaders deserve minimum wage? (1 Viewer)

Just a short update:

The Bills have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against them. Their claim is that they don't have anything to do with the Buffalo Bills other than they lease the rights to a third party company that also does concessions and parking. So the team itself doesn't employ the cheerleaders or have anything to do with how they are run.
Is the lease agreement a public document? Would love to read it to see how the Bills handle the use of their logo and public appearances using the Bills name.

 
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).

 
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Shouldn't have made a ruckus about it.

 
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Kind of sad that there are no Buffalo Jills at this point.

Yes, they were among the homeliest squads -- you simply don't draw as much talent from Amherst, Allentown, and North Tonawanda as you do from say the hot blondes of Del Mar and San Jose or the busty belles of Milton and Mecklenberg. And being in Buffalo, they need to be in down jackets for half the season, which kind of diminishes why we care about cheerleaders in the first place.

But one less squad of gals prancing in skimpy clothes is never a good thing.

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
What evidence would you like?

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
Tons of anecdotal evidence, but probably nothing that's going to satisfy you. Actresses (Hatcher), fitness gurus (Tom, etc.), models (lots), wives of famous/rich men etc. The Playboy ratio alone is kind of amazing if you think about it. There haven't been THAT many playmates over the years, but there have been quite a few former NFL cheerleaders.

I'm not going to do any kind of exhaustive dissertation on the connection, but it's fairly obvious, and it seems like I've read many former cheerleaders mention it directly.

This list is JUST Raiderettes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Raiderettes

 
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Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
What evidence would you like?
Well, if I were trying to make the assertion that a particular job was a great avenue for career enhancement, I'd look at people in the career it's supposedly an enhancement for, and compare the starting ages, salaries, and career longevity of people who started with that job, compared with the rest of the population.

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
What evidence would you like?
Pics.

Oh, sorry, you are talking about career enhancement.

It should be noted that cheerleading is a great avenue for augmentation of the chesty kind.

Thought the career path went from cheerleader to background video dancer to realtor (when gravity kicks in), to full time alcoholic MILF.

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
What evidence would you like?
Well, if I were trying to make the assertion that a particular job was a great avenue for career enhancement, I'd look at people in the career it's supposedly an enhancement for, and compare the starting ages, salaries, and career longevity of people who started with that job, compared with the rest of the population.
Feel free to do exactly that. I don't care if you believe my assertion. I could say the sky is blue and I may or may not be able to prove it to your satisfaction, but it certainly wouldn't be worth my time. And this particular "study" has approximately 1 gazillion variables, so good luck with that.

 
Holy Schneikes said:
Anything been resolved in Buffalo, yet?
Well, as of right now, they don't have cheerleaders anymore. I'm not sure who "won". That is probably why many of the cheerleaders didn't want the others raising too much ruckus about the pay. It's a great avenue for career enhancement regardless of the paycheck, and it is now gone (at least for now, for that group).
Do you have any evidence that "it's a great avenue for career enhancement"?
Tons of anecdotal evidence, but probably nothing that's going to satisfy you. Actresses (Hatcher), fitness gurus (Tom, etc.), models (lots), wives of famous/rich men etc. The Playboy ratio alone is kind of amazing if you think about it. There haven't been THAT many playmates over the years, but there have been quite a few former NFL cheerleaders.

I'm not going to do any kind of exhaustive dissertation on the connection, but it's fairly obvious, and it seems like I've read many former cheerleaders mention it directly.

This list is JUST Raiderettes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Raiderettes
John Elway married a Raiderette?!? That's blasphemous for both teams -- talk about yer star crossed lovers right there....

 
I'm not sure when "whats the right thing to do?" left the public discourse.

"I can legally screw you over so I'm gonna do it", seems to be some kind of admirable and acceptable position these days.

 
I'm not sure when "whats the right thing to do?" left the public discourse.

"I can legally screw you over so I'm gonna do it", seems to be some kind of admirable and acceptable position these days.
That's the thing, are they being truly "screwed over" more than the average American worker? What are their other options? What is their long term outlook? How essential is the service they provide? What is the marketplace like for people with their skills? These things all play into how much or little they are being "screwed over". It's all well and good to want the big, rich NFL team to share the wealth - that's an easy position to take. They have the money to pay the cheerleaders more, no doubt. But should the maintenance guys make twice the going rate at every company in the country that is doing well? You can make a case for that and many have, but it's not the way our economy works. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we know what the "right thing to do" is in cases like these.

There was definitely a time when the government needed to intervene to protect the worker in this country. There are still situations where I am not opposed at all to government intervention. I'm just not at all sure this is one of those situations. These aren't kids being forced to work in a mine to feed their families. In one case this is an educated, beautiful young woman who left a higher paying cheerleader gig to work for an NFL team then sued them because they didn't pay her enough. If there was nothing beyond sheer paycheck in it for her, why did she leave the other job? Why are there so many other people willing to do the same job for the same money?

So the Buf squad got their entire job removed, and the Raiderettes got 6k/year minus whatever the lawyers will take and the personal hours they put into it. Was it really worth it?

I don't know, I'll admit my personal opinion is colored a bit by a little family history. When I was a kid, my dad got a HIGHLY coveted position at a big factory in town. Pay and benefits were AMAZING for the time and the kind of work it was - easily twice as much in some cases as many others doing similar work. Union shop. Contract was up. Company wasn't doing well overall, and didn't offer a big increase in comp, maybe even some employee cost savings, but nothing outrageous. Union voted to strike anyway. Company said they couldn't afford what the union was demanding. Union voted to keep up the fight. Company closed up shop and moved somewhere else. HUGE loss for the company, but they believed they would go out of business if they met union demands. All the workers laid off. Most ended up with jobs more like other guys in town with way lower wages. Many didn't get jobs at all for a while, because the local economy was all of the sudden in the tank.

 
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It's all well and good to want the big, rich NFL team to share the wealth - that's an easy position to take. They have the money to pay the cheerleaders more, no doubt. But should the maintenance guys make twice the going rate at every company in the country that is doing well? You can make a case for that and many have, but it's not the way our economy works. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we know what the "right thing to do" is in cases like these.
Let me tell you something about how our economy works. If you have wage workers, you have to pay them a minimum wage. Otherwise you're breaking the law. It's been that way for 75 years and the economy hasn't come crumbling down yet.

 
It's all well and good to want the big, rich NFL team to share the wealth - that's an easy position to take. They have the money to pay the cheerleaders more, no doubt. But should the maintenance guys make twice the going rate at every company in the country that is doing well? You can make a case for that and many have, but it's not the way our economy works. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we know what the "right thing to do" is in cases like these.
Let me tell you something about how our economy works. If you have wage workers, you have to pay them a minimum wage. Otherwise you're breaking the law. It's been that way for 75 years and the economy hasn't come crumbling down yet.
Yep, and no one has proven Cheerleaders don't make that minimum wage, even now. If it looked like the Raiders were REALLY hosing them, their lawyers wouldn't have settled for 6K/year. I've got no issue with the minimum wage in general. What's your point?

 
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It's all well and good to want the big, rich NFL team to share the wealth - that's an easy position to take. They have the money to pay the cheerleaders more, no doubt. But should the maintenance guys make twice the going rate at every company in the country that is doing well? You can make a case for that and many have, but it's not the way our economy works. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we know what the "right thing to do" is in cases like these.
Let me tell you something about how our economy works. If you have wage workers, you have to pay them a minimum wage. Otherwise you're breaking the law. It's been that way for 75 years and the economy hasn't come crumbling down yet.
Yep, and no one has proven Cheerleaders don't make that minimum wage, even now. If it looked like the Raiders were REALLY hosing them, their lawyers wouldn't have settled for 6K/year. I've got no issue with the minimum wage in general. What's your point?
You realize that minimum wage for a full-time worker (which cheerleaders are not) is less than $15K/year, right?

 
If the mascots make minimum wage, then the cheerleaders should qualify too. The bigger question is how the teams get away with classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees. By the IRS definition, you could make a strong case that they should be classified as employees.

 
If the mascots make minimum wage, then the cheerleaders should qualify too. The bigger question is how the teams get away with classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees. By the IRS definition, you could make a strong case that they should be classified as employees.
Yes, that's why the Raiders are paying out $1.5M.

 
If the mascots make minimum wage, then the cheerleaders should qualify too. The bigger question is how the teams get away with classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees. By the IRS definition, you could make a strong case that they should be classified as employees.
Yes, that's why the Raiders are paying out $1.5M.
Yes and I don't see how any of the other teams with pending lawsuits would prevail. They will either settle like the Raiders or lose in court. It seems like a slam dunk case of employee misclassification.

 
If the mascots make minimum wage, then the cheerleaders should qualify too. The bigger question is how the teams get away with classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees. By the IRS definition, you could make a strong case that they should be classified as employees.
Yes, that's why the Raiders are paying out $1.5M.
Good to hear!!!

 
Buffalo Bills Cheerleaders’ Routine: No Wages and No Respect
BUFFALO — Alyssa cannot recall the precise moment she realized her dream gig as a Buffalo Bills cheerleader had turned into a nightmare.

Each week held so many indignities.

Supervisors ordered the cheerleaders, known as the Buffalo Jills, to warm up in a frigid, grubby stadium storeroom that smelled of gasoline. They demanded that cheerleaders pay $650 for uniforms. They told the cheerleaders to do jumping jacks to see if flesh jiggled.

The Jills were required to attend a golf tournament for sponsors. The high rollers paid cash — “Flips for Tips” — to watch bikini-clad cheerleaders do back flips. Afterward, the men placed bids on which women would ride around in their golf carts.

A not-incidental detail: The carts had no extra seats. Women clung to the back or, much more to the point, were invited to sit in the men’s laps..........
 

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