During the Boxing Day Test last week, a "meeting of adversaries" took place between Cricket Australia Team Performance Manager Pat Howard and Australian Cricketers' Association CEO Alastair Nicholson, according to Chris Barrett of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. At issue "was a subject that has driven the two parties further apart during the past eight months than would ordinarily be the case with the natural friction that exists between employer and union." Women's pay.
An end to the stalemate, however, "might just be around the corner." Howard predicts Australia's contracted female players "will be fully professional by the start of next summer, and that state players will be semi-professional in the same time frame." He "will not put an exact figure on the salary range that will be available to the Ashes-winning Southern Stars but if the top Australian players are on six-figure contracts for the first time it will be a landmark moment for cricket and women's sport in general in Australia." Asked whether Australia's women would be fully professional by next summer, Howard said, "I'd be very surprised if that doesn't happen. There's lots of ways to make this work and we're just going through the finer detail of making it work." Australia's "centrally-contracted women's players are currently paid retainers" between A$50,134 ($36,000) and A$78,034 ($56,000) out of a A$2.26M ($1.6M) pool. State players "are presently on anywhere between" A$10,000 ($7,000) and A$17,000 ($12,000). Contracts in the Women's Big Bash League are worth between A$3,000 ($2,000) and A$10,000.
In a season in which the WBBL has launched successfully, with higher than anticipated free-to-air TV ratings, "those figures will rise significantly again soon." The only question "is by what means."
That "is the crux of the ongoing dispute between CA and the ACA," which has campaigned for women's players to have their own collective bargaining agreement to give them the same rights as the men but against CA's desire for women's pay to be drawn from the same $71M ($51M) salary cap that male players are paid from (SMH, 1/4).
WATERSHED SEASON: The AAP reported Ellyse Perry "describes it as a watershed season for women’s cricket in Australia." The inaugural Women’s Big Bash League is "a resounding success." Perry is "hoping the WBBL helps fast track a fully-professional era of women’s cricket."
Perry: "As elite players in the game you want to be as professional as possible and have every opportunity to continue to develop. That’s certainly where the women’s game is heading." SCG Trust Chair Tony Shepherd "praised CA for growing the women’s game."
Shepherd said, "Their rise may indeed be the greatest legacy of Cricket Australia’s current administration" (AAP, 1/4).
