Monday Morning Advocate

Equal Pay
Recently Fred Dreier, Associate editor of Velonews, sat down with Georgia Gould to speak about her petitioning the UCI for equal pay for women. Below are some excerpts and the wording of the actual petition.

Excerts from Velonews Interview:
Georgia Gould: I'm talking about equal minimum for the top-five finishers. That's a good place to start. It's equal minimum - if the promoters want to make the men's prize money above the minimum, well that's great. I realize that the men's field is deeper, and they should certainly get paid deeper for having a deeper field. But I don't think that women should be penalized. This isn't about taking money away from men; it's about bringing more money to women.

VN: How did the idea come about for writing this?

GG: It's something that I've been talking about with other women and men about for a while. So at the New Jersey [at the November 16-17 USGP rounds] I won the races and [Luna teammate] Katerina [Nash] won the SRAM Most Aggressive Rider award, which is an awesome prize, and if you win it you get $250. Well that was more than I got for winning the race. I got like $220 or $230 bucks, and I was like ‘Really? That doesn't sound right." I had wanted to do a written petition and have it ready by the [December 1-2] Portland races, because I think having it in paper gives it more credence. But I didn't get it done, and it turns out that having it online, it has reached a lot more people.

The actual petition:

To: Union Cycliste Internationale (U.C.I.)
We, the undersigned, find it regrettable that there is still a considerable disparity between the UCI minimum prize money for men and women. We understand that because competition in the men's field is deeper, more places receive prize money. We do not understand why the women who are receiving prize money receive less than their male counterparts. Therefore we propose that the UCI show leadership and mandate equal prize money for the top five men and women. Article 3 of the UCI Constitution states: "The UCI will carry out its activities in compliance with the principles of: a) equality between all the members and all the athletes, license-holders and officials, without racial, political, religious, or other discrimination." We ask the UCI to honor its commitment to equality.

The Undersigned

I encourage all who read this to sign the petition. Frankly, its a worthy issue whose time has come, and in Georgia Gould its found an equally worthy champion.

CLICK HERE to sign the petition for equal minimum pay.

Photo: Leonard Basobas