Alysia Montano lying about pregnancy timeline and departure from Nike

Vffhxhh wrote:

Most women who work, even with the best maternity leave, work during pregnancy or at least most if it. No one gets all their pregnancy off. Yet kara and Alysia seem to want all their pregnancy off plus maternity leave. c

She ran U.S. Champs while 8 months pregnant. That sounds like working through pregnancy. What are sponsored athletes paid to do? The biggest story on the women's side in the 2014 champs was Alysia running pregnant. She excelled at her job from a sponsors point of view.

Vffhxhh wrote:

Here is another issue. Kara and Alysia were trying to mix 2 ideas. Most women who work, even with the best maternity leave, work during pregnancy or at least most if it. No one gets all their pregnancy off. Yet kara and Alysia seem to want all their pregnancy off plus maternity leave.

Stop comparing it to other workers.

What are they getting paid for, what is their "work"?

Ultimately elite athletes must compete, but they are also paid for ancillary branding stuff like appearances and social media. Things they can and often do these while pregnant. (Heck, Montano even competed while super pregnant; an obnoxious stunt in my opinion, but it ultimately brought net-positive PR for her and her sponsors.)

Elites are also, under normal circumstances, paid to train. If they miss a race due to injury, they don't have to pay back what they got during training (there may be future salary reductions, but that's beside the point because it's not retroactive). They have to compete eventually, but they are paid to train. In Kara's case it sounds like she raced 3.5 months postpartum to restart Nike's payments. So, all the work and training she put in between birth and that race was done without pay. She was one of the biggest names in female US distance running, under contract with the biggest and highest profile sponsor, and she was training for months without pay.

You're right, it's not a perfect comparison with jobs that aren't as reliant on the person's health and physical capabilities. But to say that athletes aren't working at all from the time they get pregnant through the time they compete again is bogus.

team Unruly Bush wrote:

Vffhxhh wrote:

Most women who work, even with the best maternity leave, work during pregnancy or at least most if it. No one gets all their pregnancy off. Yet kara and Alysia seem to want all their pregnancy off plus maternity leave. c

She ran U.S. Champs while 8 months pregnant. That sounds like working through pregnancy. What are sponsored athletes paid to do? The biggest story on the women's side in the 2014 champs was Alysia running pregnant. She excelled at her job from a sponsors point of view.

Alysia ran for ASICS in 2014 (per the official results below)

She was a spectacle, for sure, but was hardly the biggest story.

Women 800 Meter Run

Name Year Team Prelims H#

Preliminaries

1 Laura Roesler Oregon 2:01.64Q 4

2 Maggie Vessey Unattached 2:01.87Q 1

3 LaTavia Thomas NJNY TC 2:02.39Q 3

4 Ajee' Wilson adidas 2:03.35Q 2

5 Molly Beckwith Saucony 2:01.81Q 4

29 Alysia Montano Asics 2:32.13 3

I'm disturbed once again by the hostility of the OP that unfortunately tarnishes so much of Letsrun.

And while you, PersonalChoice, make some good points, you are confused regarding contractor vs employee. Just because Nike signed someone as a Contractor doesn't mean they shouldn't get basic rights. In fact there are employment laws in place to prevent taking such advantages of individuals as contractors (albeit not always successful, which may be the singular reason Uber and Lyft are at their current valuations, well, after hype of course). If a contractor relies on all or a majority of their income from a company and does this over multiple years, the company is at risk of getting into labor law issues and could be forced to make additional compensation and expenses. I think this applies to a number of athletes who were and presently are on Nike's payroll.

Most of these ladies would be happy to keep working during their pregnancies, representing Nike with personal appearances and promotion, but they are not given the option to do this. The contracts are draconian; suspend or drop with no compensation. Is this really 2019 and somebody who makes so much money off women, positions themselves as being on the would treat their ambassadors this way?? Really??

I'm a capitalist as much as the next guy, but I'm at a lost why they would do this, its mice nuts in the scheme of their budget but they are just being ruthless and sexist. And this grand concession Nike just made to cover maternity time now begs other questions; what are the conditions? Do they allow time for them to recover from delivery and get back into shape?

And what's up with you all ripping her for crying when she got tripped. So many men can't handle women who a) stand up for themselves or b) show emotion.

When Berian stood up to Nike, he was a legend on here. When Montano does it, a bunch of insecure dudes go crazy.

Now, I do get the contractor stuff. Yes, it's not easy for a company. If you sign a woman to a 10 year deal, you probably don't want them to decide to not compete for 8 years as they have 4 kids.[/quote]

Why are there so many misogynists on this site? Even Rojo can't quite give full support and has to add a "think of the company" clause when trying to support her.

Anyway, Montano is exposing an unfair policy. All those who say "Just don't sign the contract, get another one!" clearly have not had ANY contract like this placed before them. Typically, there are clauses that require a lawyer to decipher and most people have the choice of a contract or none. It is not a choice of contract A being drastically different from B and you don't get line item modifications.

Try this: Next time you go to the doctor's office, refuse to sign the Arbitration clause because as a patient this gives you a serious disadvantage if there is malpractice. Do you think the doctor will see you? How about a different doctor? Now imagine you are a woman with the exact same circumstances.

um, OP I don't think Alysia would have the audacity to lie about something that has a paper trail - that would be silly and they would have proven her wrong already

IHateMisogynists wrote:

Why are there so many misogynists on this site? Even Rojo can't quite give full support and has to add a "think of the company" clause when trying to support her.

Wow, how dare he give a nuanced opinion. He should just parrot the Correct feminist talking points and leaving it at that.

maternity leave is a joke wrote:

Paid maternity leave is just stupid. Why should someone get time off work for a choice they made? What about the people who choose not to have kids or can't? Time off work should be earned via however accumulated at your employer. If you don't have enough to last maternity leave, then you don't get paid for the whole time. Man it sure would be nice to get paid time off work for nothing!

So says the guy who clearly isn’t married, doesn’t have kids and hopefully will never be married and never have kids.

Paid time off for nothing? Do you think it’s easy to be pregnant for nine months and then give birth and then to raise the child? Yeah, that’s nothing.

Not gonna lie. 2:32 (1:16 per lap) is still damn impressive if you are 8 mos. pregnant.

The solution is wrote:

The solution is to only offer females 6 month contracts , to evaluate the situation . No one in any sport deserves a multi year contract, unless they are proven . I would like to see MLB players taking paternity leave .

Jesus, that's the worst for any athlete (other than being not sponsored at all). Runners need to take in their long-term goals, not keep proving themselves every workout, every race. It's already the most injury prone sport. And their sponsors should be thinking long term.

Nike didn't have to change their policy, but it's a good business decision. Who cares how many races you race in a year when they're not even televised. Pregnant ladies could just instagram their bumps in Nike gear and it would be more exposure than coming in 8th in the 5k of a Diamond League race. Oh, wait, that no longer exists.

And what's up with you all ripping her for crying when she got tripped. So many men can't handle women who a) stand up for themselves or b) show emotion.

When Berian stood up to Nike, he was a legend on here. When Montano does it, a bunch of insecure dudes go crazy.

Now, I do get the contractor stuff. Yes, it's not easy for a company. If you sign a woman to a 10 year deal, you probably don't want them to decide to not compete for 8 years as they have 4 kids.[/quote]

I worked in a large corporation. We have hired women who were pregnant and immediately went on leave for a year. It didn't make a lot of sense to me, but the law was the law, and if you hire right a career person with real talent is of long term value to the corporation.

Not sure about athletes though. A year maybe their entire career. Especially if you add on the recovery and changes to the schedule post birth.

Athletic careers are short. 3 years is a long time. I get Nike in this case.

dramaqueen4thegood wrote:

Nike didn't have to change their policy, but it's a good business decision. Who cares how many races you race in a year when they're not even televised. Pregnant ladies could just instagram their bumps in Nike gear and it would be more exposure than coming in 8th in the 5k of a Diamond League race. Oh, wait, that no longer exists.

Hey someone else gets it.

Maybe someone on here should actually state some facts about maternity leave.

- there is no federal law requiring paid maternity leave

- Oregon and California do not require paid maternity leave

-just the paid leave provision of most maternity leave is capped at 12 weeks (Nike’s policy for full time employees is 14 weeks) if any additional leave is offered after that it is unpaid

-paid maternity leave is typically only 50-60% of salary for full time employees.

- maternity leave is basically treated the same as a short term disability medical leave

-about half of companies that offer paid leave do not offer it in the first year of employment

-montano was a sponsored athlete not an employee. She was a contractor and like all contractors she was not entitled to any benefits.

As many have pointed out, if you hired a contractor to perform a service for you and they did not perform that service (because they were pregnant), then you wouldn’t pay them.

Being a contractor and not an employee is what allows sponsored athletes to choose their coaches, races, other sponsors(!), and when and where and how they train. If they were employees, the relationship would be much closer to that of an NCAA athlete on a full scholarships except a manager at Nike would be your boss and decide everything. It could/would be incredibly restrictive compared to even the current contracts.

Wasnt she the runner bumping into her competitors and crying to the finish line? She can be happy to be a contractor as no company would put up with an employee like that. That said I am all for maternity leave but it has to be for men and women

rojo wrote:

SHANIQUE S wrote:

YOU RACIST SCUMBAGS!!!!!!! IS THIS A KKK WEBSITE OR WHAT!!!

SO the person who posted the racist post and then this next post was the same person. They are posting from Quebec.

I don't get it, you delete a post calling out a racist post, but leave the racist post up? Or is posting stuff like this ok on this website?

Shabazz Mutumbo Akatimba wrote:

She certainly looks guilty of something.

rojo wrote:

maternity leave is a joke wrote:

Paid maternity leave is just stupid. Why should someone get time off work for a choice they made? What about the people who choose not to have kids or can't? Time off work should be earned via however accumulated at your employer. If you don't have enough to last maternity leave, then you don't get paid for the whole time. Man it sure would be nice to get paid time off work for nothing!

So says the guy who clearly isn’t married, doesn’t have kids and hopefully will never be married and never have kids.

Paid time off for nothing? Do you think it’s easy to be pregnant for nine months and then give birth and then to raise the child? Yeah, that’s nothing.

What's wrong with the current system under FLMA? Both men and women can keep their jobs for taking time off after child birth. Companies that want to attract and retain the best talent with offer paid leave.

Paid time off for nothing? Do you think it’s easy to be pregnant for nine months and then give birth and then to raise the child? Yeah, that’s nothing.

Nothing dealing with what they're being paid to do.

Facts r us wrote:

She was a spectacle, for sure, but was hardly the biggest story.

Then what was the biggest story of the women's events?

I agree with the poster. Why should an employer compensate an employee who is on maternity leave 10 times in 20 years while their coworker never misses a day of work? My wife and I have 4 children but my wife used no maternity leave because she resigned when she was pregnant with our first child. If you can't afford to have children, don't have children. It is not your employer's responsibility or the Government's responsibility to assist you.