Black Ferns’ professional contracts are a start

Anecdotally, TV coverage and on social media has increased too for woman's rugby, and the Black Ferns have rapidly grown in profile and relevance on the international stage.

It’s a start. New Zealand’s best female 15-aside rugby players are going to be offered professional contracts as part of an agreement reached between New Zealand Rugby Players Association and New Zealand Rugby.

Thirty Black Fern players will get between $40,000 and $45,000 per year and in return will need to commit to 50 days per year for rugby commitments plus high performance training requirements.

Although a start, it is hardly an equal playing field for the Black Ferns when compared to the value of the professional contracts the All Blacks are retained on.

The reality is that our top women’s rugby team should be entitled to full time players contracts on substantially the same or similar terms as their All Black colleagues.

After all the law requires that.

The Equal Pay Act 1972 makes it unlawful for any employer (including the New Zealand Rugby Union – which is the employer of our top professional rugby players) to offer different terms and conditions of work (including pay) by reason of that person’s gender.

In other words, women must be paid the same as men for the same or substantially similar type of work, and women’s rugby, arguably, is the same or substantially similar type of work, as men’s rugby.

In a farming context, a farmer owner cannot (and it is inconceivable to think that they would) pay a female farm manager any less than a male farm manager.

Can a distinction be made on productivity? Unlikely. Certainly a female farm manager can be just as productive as her male counterpart (if not more).

The Black Ferns will be no different.

In fact, if productivity was to be measured in World Cup success, the Black Ferns have won an impressive five titles out of eight (compared to the All Blacks’ three over the last 30 years).

What about popularity? Women’s rugby in 2017 showed stronger growth in age group rugby than that of the boys.

Anecdotally, TV coverage and on social media has increased too for woman’s rugby, and the Black Ferns have rapidly grown in profile and relevance on the international stage.

So, while this change is great, and will be recognised by the players as a really good deal there’s still a long way to achieve parity with the men, and there is no reason why full time professional contracts should not be available for the women.

But perhaps the comparison between the Black Ferns and the All Blacks is not that simple?

Next week Jesse Lang will look at the other side of this fence, and some of the economic realities that make the comparison much more complex.

❚ Lawyers and legal executives from Auld Brewer Mazengarb & McEwen write about legal topics affecting farmers. This column was prepared by Phil McCarthy who can be contacted by emailing philip.mccarthy@abmm.co.nz