ADKing

@justanotherusername: Great questions. The quotations I provided come straight from the federal agency tasked with enforcing the Equal Pay Act. The EPA prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. The EPA is not applicable in same sex pay disparity situations. The inference that athletes are independent contractors can be quantified by reviewing the FLSA and the operative State's statutes regarding independent contractor classification. Meaning there are multiple factors that can point to either a person being an employee or an IC. Essentially how much control and direction does the employer have over the contracted person. If the person wears company clothing, uses company tools, rides in company vehicles, is on the company website, is on company payroll/benefits, etc. It may be hard to term them as an IC. Once the employer/employee relationship is established you would then look at the comparator employee to determine if they perform substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. The burden then switches back to the employer to establish whether seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or a factor other than sex is the reason for the disparity. After that it's up to the judge or jury. As an aside, recent legislation requires that all athletes representing the United States in global athletic competitions receive equal compensation and benefits in their sport, regardless of gender. It requires equal payment for medical care, travel, and expenses. This is called the Equal Pay for Team USA Act.

@justanotherusername: There are four factors that an employer can use to justify a pay disparity between two similarly situated employees of opposite sex. "Pay differentials are permitted when they are based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or a factor other than sex. These are known as "affirmative defenses" and it is the employer's burden to prove that they apply." The "factor other than sex" defense is mostly like what the employer would argue in this scenario.

@justanotherusername: "The Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal. All forms of pay are covered by this law, including salary, overtime pay, bonuses, stock options, profit sharing and bonus plans, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses, and benefits. If there is an inequality in wages between men and women, employers may not reduce the wages of either sex to equalize their pay." https://www.eeoc.gov/equal-paycompensation-discrimination

Any US based female athlete who believes they are being paid less than a similarly situated male athlete (comparator) can file a complaint with the US EEOC alleging a violation of the EPA. They could also bypass the EEOC process and file a complaint in Federal Court.

He's lucky the cops were called. This situation could have gone from bad to worse in an instant. A solid life lesson is never get physical with someone else's child.

Someone by the name of Steve Peat donated $555 two days ago