Grants employee protections conferred by the labor law to cheerleaders.
Summary
This bill, titled the Cheerleaders’ Fair Pay Act, would amend the New York Labor Law to extend employee rights, benefits, and protections to cheerleaders working for professional sports teams based in New York. It applies to teams that employ professional athletes under professional sports-services contracts and use cheerleaders during games or exhibitions. The bill defines “cheerleader” broadly to include individuals performing acrobatics, dance, gymnastics, ice skating, or similar promotional performances for a professional sports franchise.
Under the bill, cheerleaders would be entitled to the same labor-law protections as other employees of the team for all services they provide for the team’s benefit. The measure would take effect 30 days after becoming law. In practical terms, it is aimed at ensuring that cheerleaders are treated as employees for purposes of wage, hour, and workplace protections rather than being left outside those safeguards.
Impact
The bill would add a new section 219-b to the Labor Law and create a specific statutory rule covering cheerleaders employed by professional sports teams in New York. It would require covered teams to provide cheerleaders with the rights, benefits, and protections already available to employees under the Labor Law, potentially affecting pay practices, scheduling, workplace protections, and other employment-related obligations. The bill would not create a general statewide rule for all performers, but a targeted protection for cheerleaders connected to professional sports franchises.
Sentiment
The available record shows the bill was introduced and referred to the Assembly Committee on Labor, but there are no recorded committee transcripts or votes in the provided materials. Based on the bill’s purpose and caption, the measure appears to be framed as a worker-protection and fair-pay initiative. Because no debate or voting history is available, there is no documented opposition or support in the record provided.
Contention
No specific points of contention are documented in the supplied materials because there are no committee transcripts or votes. Potential areas of dispute, based on the bill text, could include whether cheerleaders should be classified as employees under the Labor Law, whether the bill imposes new compliance costs on professional sports teams, and whether the definition of cheerleader is broad enough to cover all relevant performers. However, these concerns are not attributed to any named legislators or stakeholders in the record provided.