Female cricketers are being denied basic conditions by one-year contracts that require them to “warrant” they are not pregnant, the players’ union says.
On Thursday, the Australian newspaper published details of a leaked pay submission from the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) that revealed differences in treatment and pay of male and female players.
Kevin Roberts, the executive general manager of strategy at Cricket Australia, the governing body for the game in the country, said the pregnancy clause was as reported but was for the player’s safety and that of their unborn child. The disclosure to the medical officer would remain confidential, unless the player wanted to share the news themselves.
Though men can sign multi-year contracts, women can only sign one-year deals, which the ACA said its female members found “outdated at best and rather condescending”.
“[Women] have to ‘warrant’ that they are not, to the best of their knowledge, pregnant when they sign their contract to play for Australia, which in itself is contrary to acceptable employer behaviour in any other Australian workplace.”
Female players were also “expressly excluded” from CA’s parental leave policy, while women in non-playing roles at the organisation were entitled to four to 12 weeks’ paid parental leave.
The national minimum pay for men was $270,000 excluding superannuation, while women could expect $40,000, including superannuation.
The top players in the women’s game, such as Southern Stars captain Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry, already earn six-figure salaries from the governing body by way of the increased revenue from CA marketing contracts.
Lanning and her male counterpart Steve Smith, along with stars Alex Blackwell and David Warner, put their names to the ACA submission, calling for a better deal for women players.
Andrew Holden, a spokesman for CA, told Guardian Australia that there were some “misconceptions” about female players’ contracts.
“It’s not the full view of circumstances,” Holden said. “It’s drawn from a union’s negotiating document, so it’s no particular surprise that it emphasises various parts of the argument as opposed to the broader one.”
He said Cricket Australia had been working with the ACA on a new policy document around children and parental leave “for a while, which they well know”.
“It’s not as though there aren’t lengthy discussions around the best way to support women who play sport, who are either pregnant or have families,” he said.
The two organisations entered into pay deal talks on Monday, with ACA chief executive Alistair Nicholson telling the ABC that it was clear “a very long negotiation and a very detailed discussion”.
It is the first time the ACA has included female cricketers in its collective bargaining negotiations, though Cricket Australia has been in favour of including both men and women in the same memorandum of understanding (MOU). Its proposal to do so in 2012, the last time the deal was done, was rejected by male players.
Holden said the fact women were not included in the MOU explained some of the discrepancies over female and male players’ contracts, and would be addressed with the conclusion of the negotiation process.
Kevin Roberts said the current policy was developed in conjunction with the ACA and the two organisations had a “really healthy sense of alignment ... in terms of the issue of player health and wellbeing”.
As to the pay gap, he said Cricket Australia was committed to “significant increases” to recognises female players’ contribution to the game.
“We want to see it increase among the fastest rate of any females in Australian sport.”
While the top 10 men’s earners in Australian cricket receive upwards of $1 million annually, the average player pockets just $15,000 for featuring in the summer-long WBBL.
Ellyse Perry, the dual international and Sydney Sixers star, said she was encouraged by player demands to have one MOU agreement for all crickets regardless of gender.
“There’s been so many fantastic developments and improvements in the women’s game the last couple of years and it’s only going to continue and grow,” Perry said on Thursday.
“I genuinely think the sky’s the limit for women’s cricket and women’s sport in general, not only in Australia but around the world.”
