‘Not pregnant’ clause for women cricketers? Not expecting that

A pay submission leaked to The Australian has highlighted the ­divide between male and female cricketers.

Australian captain Meg Lanning, during a break in the Maddie Riewoldt Foundation charity match last night, has called for ‘meaningful equality’. Picture: Aaron Francis

Male cricketers fly home to be with their wives when their children are born; women have to vouch they aren’t pregnant when they sign a contract.

Men are guaranteed a doctor on standby at all games; women in the National Cricket League are not. Women who work for Cricket Australia in non-playing roles get maternity leave. Women cricketers who sign a contract with the organisation don’t.

A pay submission leaked to The Australian has highlighted the ­divide between male and female cricketers, despite the women’s game going from strength to strength. The Women’s Big Bash League set record ratings for the launch of its second season last weekend.

However, the Australian Cricketers Association, which included female cricketers in its collective bargaining negotiations for the first time, claims women players are being treated as second-class citizens by the peak body.

In the submission, the ACA claims current contracts deny them basic conditions.

“Our female members find it outdated at best and rather condescending that they can only sign one-year contracts, making life planning very difficult, while men can sign multi-year contracts,” the document says. “(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.

“(Women) have to agree to ­behave in a ‘courteous’ and ‘sporting manner’ to play for their state while our male members do not.

“(Women) are expressly ­excluded from Cricket Australia’s parental leave policy while other female members who work at CA’s head office may have the benefit of between four to 12 weeks of paid parental leave.”

The ACA said it wanted cricket to be “gender neutral” but pointed out other anomalies, including the fact that women did not have “the same rights to injury payments, visitor periods, high-performance standards and income protection as enjoyed by the men”.

Australian players Meg Lanning and Alex Blackwell appear in the ACA proposal, signing a letter that calls for “one agreement for men and women”, saying it would “put us on the right path to ­creating meaningful equality of opportunity, regardless of gender”.

Captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner endorsed their association’s approach.

The pair co-signed a statement in the ACA submission which they say is “about a better deal for women cricketers, more investment in grassroots, giving the players greater say in the game and preserving the revenue-­sharing model”.

Cricket Australia’s submission to the negotiations also calls for a gender-neutral approach in the new deal and wants women and men to receive the same “forms of payments” at state and inter­national level. While it would not publicly comment, it admitted the present contracts fell short but said it aimed to fix the anomalies around pregnancy and parental leave.

The inclusion of women in the same MOU was proposed by Cricket Australia but rejected by the male players when the last deal was done in 2012.

Cricket Australia doubled women’s pay last year, earmarking $4.23 million for the female players. The move saw the maximum rate for an international player who has a Women’s Big Bash League contract rise to $80,000 and tip over $100,000 once match fees are included. The minimum retainer is $40,000 for the Australian women’s team, the Southern Stars.

Cricket NSW almost doubled the pay of its female state players earlier this year to ensure they earned a minimum wage.

Male players’ payments come from a revenue-sharing model and the ACA wants the women to come in under that system.

However, a submission from CA, which was revealed exclusively in The Australian yesterday, seeks to remove male domestic cricketers and exclude female players form the revenue-share model. Only international male players would have access to a percentage of the organisation’s revenue under that proposal, which was rejected by the players.