Tampa Bay Buccaneers Settle Lawsuit With Former Cheerleader
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization has settled an ongoing lawsuit between the team and disgruntled former cheerleader, Manouchcar Pierre-Val. The lawsuit is another stepping-stone in the struggle for fair wages for NFL cheerleaders, with this verdict coming on the back of a previous ruling last year with the Oakland Raiders cheerleaders.
In her lawsuit, Manouchcar Pierre-Val alleges that the team paid her the equivalent of less than $2 an hour. Cheerleaders were only paid for games, and they were seldom and sparsely paid for outside events that required their presence. Pierre-Val maintained her full-time job as a registered nurse during her two seasons with the Buccaneers. The $825,000 settlement will be split between legal fees and 90 of her fellow cheerleaders.
Cheerleaders from other teams, like the Jets and the Bills, are following in the footsteps of the Buccaneers and Raiders by filing their own lawsuits. Alongside allegations of unfair wages, the Bills lawsuit also accuses the team of unfair treatment. The suit says that the cheerleaders were mistreated at events like the annual golf tournament, where they were forced to wear bikinis and they were the subjects of an auction. The “Jills,” the nickname for the Bills cheerleaders, were temporarily disbanded after the lawsuit was filed. Both the Jets and Bills lawsuits are still pending. Read about the Bills suit here.
Want to read more articles about unpaid wages? Check out this one — a Canadian Hockey League sued for $180 million in unpaid wages.
*image by Andy Lederer, Flickr
