Charger Girls finally have something to celebrate

On April 8, the state Assembly's Committee on Labor and Employment moved forward a bill authored by San Diego's former labor leader and current assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez that requires sports teams to pay fair wages to cheerleaders. The bill is now one step closer to a full vote.

The bill, according to Gonzalez’s office, will "better protect cheerleaders of professional sports from workplace abuses and bring equity to the multibillion-dollar professional sports landscape by treating their teams as employees under California law."

Proper pay for professional football cheerleaders has become an issue in recent years. In 2014, five professional football teams — the Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — were sued by cheerleaders for not paying a reasonable wage. In September 2014, the Raiders paid $1.25 million to settle their lawsuit. Earlier this month, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers paid $825,000 to settle one as well.

"News reports and lawsuits detail that, in addition to sub-minimum wage pay, cheerleaders of professional teams have been forced to spend thousands of dollars in unreimbursed costs on travel and personal appearance as well as work unpaid overtime —practices that would be illegal under the law but were found to be commonplace pressures on teams’ cheerleaders despite the tremendous profits being gained by the teams they cheered for," reads a press release from the assemblywoman.

Added Gonzalez, “[Assembly Bill] 202 simply demands that any professional sports team — or their chosen contractor — treat the women on the field with the same dignity and respect that we treat the guy selling beer.”

(corrected 4/14, 8:20 p.m.)