The WNBA labor fight is the latest in a the long history of women-led worker movements
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When Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier calmly sat down and told a group of assembled local media the WNBA is helmed by “the worst leadership in the w
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When Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier calmly sat down and told a group of assembled local media the WNBA is helmed by “the worst leadership in the world” on September 30, she likely did so with a full understanding of the potential impact of her words.
Collier—who launched Unrivaled, the women’s professional three-on-three basketball league alongside the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart in 2023—is the granddaughter of Gershon Collier, who served as Sierra Leone’s representative in the United Nations in the 1960s. She understands the impact of the right words.
And the words she chose forced the in-house negotiations between the WNBA and the players’ union, the Women’s National Basketball Player’s Association (WNBPA), fully into the public eye.
“I think it’s time that people know what’s happening—the way that the league is not valuing us the way that we need to be valued,” Collier said.
WNBA players opted out of their current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) last year, and since then the clock has been ticking: after missing the October deadline, the WNBA offered players a 30-day extension, they agreed; the new deadline is November 30.
“[The players] are at the center of everything we do,” Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said speaking to reporters on October 3. “If the players in the W don't feel appreciated and valued by the league, then we have to do better, and I have to do better.”
The WNBPA’s current fight is one that hails from a long lineage of women-led labor strikes and disputes. UC Santa Barbara’s Dr. Eileen Boris, who specializes in labor studies as well as gender, race, class, and women’s history in the university’s Feminist Studies department, told Fast Company that there is a “big history of women organizing” in the United States.
“Women have never been passive in the workplace,” she says.
We’re seeing that play out yet again—and in the case of the WNBA, on one of the biggest public stages possible.
Echoes of the past
The heart of the dispute is money: the WNBA has never been more popular, and more money than ever has been pouring into the league. At the same time, the players are not adequately compensated—a reality that is all the more confusing when one considers that the athletes in the WNBA are both the product and, effectively, the marketing team. Throughout the regular season, fans turn to social media more often than not to catch up on game scores, tunnel fits, and what teams are up to, and they form parasocial relationships with the stars of the game.
It should be noted that the WNBA’s astronomical growth—staggering increases in viewership and game attendance, league expansion that has included adding a total of six new teams by 2030, improved resources for players such as chartered flights, and an influx of funds from media rights deals and partnerships—have all happened under Engelbert’s watch. She emphasized to the reporters that the “heart” of the league lies with “building a movement that not only showcases the best athletes in the world, but also inspires millions who dream of following in their footsteps.”
At the top of the players’ list of demands is a more equitable share of overall revenue that’s coming into the league. The players have proposed a new system: one that allows that share to grow as the league’s revenue grows. That would benefit not only the athletes currently in the league, but for the athletes who will join in years to come. But in response, the league has suggested a system not too dissimilar from what is already in place, offering salary increases that include a cap that increases by a fixed rate over time. To complicate matters further, the WNBA and NBA have not yet shared the books that explain just how much revenue there is.
This is hardly the first time the 29-year-old league’s athletes have entered into a legal dispute with the league’s leadership. In fact, the first-ever CBA nearly tore the league apart—but ultimately set the standard for women’s professional sports leagues in the United States (and even in the world).
And yet, today, players remain embroiled in an extremely public, high-stakes fight; workers (in this case, players) are pushing back on a leadership they believe to be toxic.
This reality is underscored by a host of women-led labor movements: From the striking female workers at textile factories in the 1800s in Lowell, Massachusetts, to the garment workers of New York City, to the 1881 Atlanta Washerwomen strike, which achieved racial solidarity as part of its movement.
Historically, Boris says, “women who were considered the consumers of the goods supported the [striking] workers” in past U.S. disputes — a pattern that is also playing out as the WNBPA continues to receive broad support from female fans. Those past movements are not dissimilar to what the players of the WNBA face now, and one key to success will be garnering and retaining mass public support for the fight.
‘Contentious’ negotiations
“The players are demanding what they feel is fair,” author and cohost of The Women’s Hoop Show podcast Jordan Robinson explained to Fast Company. “And I believe that the players feel like they maybe settled [for less than they deserved] in their last CBA negotiation with the hope of the league growing down the line.” Now? “That growth happened way faster and way sooner than a lot of the players probably were thinking.”
That growth is owed in large part to Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, as well as Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese and Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers, and “these new rookies coming in bringing a lot of fans from college, and a lot of eyes, attention, and dollars,” Robinson says. Under the current agreement, a rookie drafted in the top four spots in 2025 makes $78,831 this year. But Clark, who is responsible for 26.5% of WNBA revenue all by herself, signed a contract that began at $76,535 annually when she was drafted as the number-one overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
ESPN reported this week that the WNBA has proposed increasing the max salary as part of the current negotiations. But why are some of the league’s best players making less than $80,000 a year, especially in a league that landed a $2.2 billion media rights deal in July 2024?
The answer might be hiding behind what increasingly appears to be a toxic storm brewing within the league itself. Collier hinted at league-wide dysfunction and unrest in her statement, and in an interview with Glamour published October 28, she took things a step further.
“We are being so grossly almost taken advantage of, and it should be illegal,” she insisted. “The amount of money that Caitlin Clark has made the league is insane, and she’s getting 0% of it because we have no rev share. She gets less than $80,000 a year, and she’s bringing in, like, hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s insane.”
As Boris put it, “the general public does not look at these workers as workers.”
“They don't see the working conditions. They don't see the kind of bullying that might be taking place” and “the hierarchies” behind the scenes.
It’s “a big problem,” she says.
Like generations of women who have spearheaded labor disputes in the past, from the New York shirt waist strike of 1909 (which fought for better pay and hours, safer, more humane conditions) to a 2022 strike against Kroger (around wages and COVID-era safety at work), the players have to prove their own humanity to garner support.
Workers in other industries have been forced to take drastic measures to get their needs met, too: there were the dual SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) Hollywood strikes in 2023, or what may unfold in West Virginia if coal miners struggling with black lung disease aren’t adequately responded to.
A WNBA spokesperson noted on October 28 that the league urges “the Players Association to spend less time disseminating public misinformation and more time joining us in constructive engagement.” But when toxicity feels as if it’s baked into the culture of the job, what options do any workers have but to fight for what they believe they deserve?
‘Self-sabotage' for the organization
Like these labor disputes of the past, WNBA players are pushing for the same goals so many workers everywhere want: higher pay, increased benefits, and protection from occupational hazards, like injuries on the court. As Collier also said, “Whether the league cares about the health of the players is one thing, but to also not care about the product we put on the floor is truly self-sabotage.”
As we should have learned by now, it doesn’t typically pay to devalue workers and continue with toxic conditions. Over time, that erodes an organization from the inside out, something that has been demonstrated throughout the history of work in the United States. When it comes to the WNBA, the concerns are a little more physical and personal. Injuries are part of the game, and perhaps no one knows this better than Collier herself. The 29-year-old forward suffered at least two at crucial moments this season alone: she missed several games due to a sprained ankle, a reality that could have cost her the coveted MVP crown this season.
But players—workers—feel within their rights to challenge any circumstances in which they don’t feel safe. Many of the great labor advances in this country started exactly that way.
“This is not only for us”
Though it may feel obvious to those watching the WNBA and CBA negotiations closely that players are making demands that are reasonable when considering what they bring to the league, the path ahead of them is still “very hard,” Boris says. All workers “have to get as high of a salary as you can during your prime when you’re working,” she explains.
The success of negotiations will depend in part on “how public they are. One strategy which is really useful is having workers give testimony about working conditions or being forced to play, and [being] forced to practice with injuries or lack of sick days or family accommodation.”
To that end, it seems that’s what some players have had in mind: In addition to Collier, plenty of WNBA superstars, including four-time MVP A’ja Wilson and the Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham, have made it clear where they stand on the issue and that they are willing to fight tooth and nail. That’s necessary because the stakes are just so high, Boris says.
And like the historic, women-led labor movements in the past, the outcome won’t just affect the women currently playing in the league.
When asked about the perception that WNBA leadership is not pro-player, Seattle Storm guard Lexie Brown tells Fast Company: “I think it runs deep. I think it’s been this way for a long time, and I think it’s getting to the point where we just finally have the leverage.”
WNBA players have other opportunities, she points out, like AU Pro Basketball, the women’s professional league that will kick off its fifth season in Nashville in February. The new Player B league in Europe and Asia also promises higher pay than the WNBA does. Such leagues afford players “the money to potentially not have a [WNBA] season,” she explains.
“None of us want that to happen, but I think it’s just been a build up over years and years, and we have to stand on business when it comes to this.”
The league’s players are fighting this fight for those who came before them: the players who “continued to show up to work, every single year, despite the conditions, despite not having facilities, despite flying commercial, sharing hotel rooms,” she says. They’re also fighting for “all the little girls out there that want to be in the WNBA.”
“This is not only for us,” Brown added. “It’s for everybody in the future.”
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📚 References & Sources
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