Sunday, February 23, 2014

Cheerleader Gone Wild (in Court)

Alexa Brenneman

NyPo nails the problems with this interventionist lawsuit:
Football season may be over, but that’s not stopping one NFL cheerleader.
Her name is Alexa Brenneman, and she’s just kicked off a campaign aimed at forcing pro football teams to pay cheerleaders the minimum wage.
This is the gist of the lawsuit filed by Brenneman, a Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader. For her time as a Ben-Gals cheerleader this past season, Brenneman was paid a total of $855, which works out to just about $2.85 an hour — far less than Ohio’s minimum wage of $7.95 an hour.
It’s a cause that may look familiar, given the related furor over unpaid internships at Condé Nast, NBC Universal, Viacom, Sony, etc.
Like the Bengals’ cheerleader, former interns are arguing that they are both under-compensated and exploited by their employers. When one of these intern lawsuits hit the media giant Condé Nast, the company responded by abolishing its internship program altogether.
Now, we’re not going to get into the legal ­technicalities. We have just two broad points: The first is that no one forces anyone to be a cheerleader for an NFL team or to take an internship at a large media company. To the contrary, the competition is fierce.
That competition leads us to our second point: There is more to compensation than just money. The people who take this work know it. And that’s why they do it.
An NFL cheerleader, for example, might hope for a career in, say, modeling or television — not unlike Paula Abdul, who started off as a Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader.
In much the same way, an unknown singer would be delighted to have people play her song for free — because at that stage in her career, what she needs most is exposure.
The same goes for internships. When people are young and have little experience, they may seek compensation for their work in ways they think more important to them in the long term: making contacts with influential people they would otherwise never meet; getting an inside look at how things are done; finding out where the best opportunities are, etc.
We don’t see anything wrong here, especially if it’s a relationship between consenting adults. It’s no coincidence that both industries in question in the cheerleader and intern cases are glam professions.
It’s also no secret that it’s a long shot that doesn’t pay off for everyone in the ways they hope and expect.
But learning that is valuable, too.

12 comments:

  1. Hell, I'd pay her $855 just for a lunch date. Yow!

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    1. I'd pay her nothing for a date. Why is she so special, because she flaunts her parts?

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    2. srsly who pays for a date?

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    3. Maybe you ought to re-examine that pic.

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    4. lol, she looks just like a Barbie doll. Are you sure she can state her name without pulling a string first? I know, I know, who cares if she doesn't talk, right?

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  2. I believe cheerleaders also get quite nice appearance fees when they go out to events and promos and such.

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  3. This woman would never pull out a gun and demand better pay, but evidently she has no problem having the state do the dirty work on her behalf. Typical.

    And now you know why nearly everyone dislikes or downright despises politicians, yet runs to them at every opportunity for "free" stuff and special consideration at the expense of others.

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  4. Alexa Brenneman, start reading here: mises.org

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  5. This will end in a very simple way. The Ben-Gals will just go the way of the Honey Bears.

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  6. Excellent rebuttal, Merlin.

    The "proof" for AGW is spurious and filled with errors. The fact that their predictions from 20 years ago have been disastrously wrong, and have never been right even 5 years out should make anyone question their motives. The fact that any climate scientist that does NOT believe in AGW is "frozen out" of any university and denied any government funds to research their alternative theory is damning. The fact that some very powerful people make billions based on this "science" that gives even more power to the government should make any sane person reexamine the data. Finally, the fact that the IPCC and the leading "Climate Change" spokestools have been caught lying, manipulating data and threatening anyone who refuses to "toe the line" makes the characterization of "Nazi" highly applicable.

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  7. -- An NFL cheerleader, for example, might hope for a career in, say, modeling or television — not unlike Paula Abdul, who started off as a Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader. --
    Hasn't it dawned on anyone that in almost all discussions on cable news, broadcast news and the media in general on the plight of underpaid cheerleaders, the talking heads and opinion-makers never seem to make the obvious question to Ms. Brenneman, which is: If you wanted to make minimum wage, why don't you go work at McDonald's or Burger King and stop punishing yourself so much?

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  8. Robert:
    Title of the story is 'Cheerleader Gone Wild (in Court)' accompanied by photo of sexy cheerleader.
    Second sentence of fifth paragraph:"We have just two 'broad points' ".
    Good one.

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