Willig, Williams & Davidson Managing Partner Deborah Willig Advises WNBA in Labor Talks

PHILADELPHIA (August 2024) – Deborah R. Willig, managing partner of Philadelphia labor, employment, workers’ compensation and family law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson, has been chosen to serve on a five-person advisory committee to counsel Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) players on their decision to stay in or opt out of their union’s current collective bargaining agreement.

With rising attendance and viewership as well as a new media rights deal that is set to earn the WNBA six times what it makes in its current deal, the players’ union is considering how to leverage the league’s growing popularity. The players’ current bargaining agreement is set to expire in 2027. If either side chooses to opt out by November 2024, the agreement will end in October 2025 with one year to negotiate a new agreement. Salaries, travel arrangements, revenue sharing structure, and player health and safety are expected to be major considerations in this decision. Other potential issues include pensions, roster sizes, and parental and family planning benefits.

“I am honored to serve on this Advisory Committee and to assist the WNBA players on these very significant labor talks,” said Willig. “These players have risen to the top of their profession thanks to their remarkable talent and work ethic, and they deserve fair pay and benefits reflective of all they have done to make the WNBA so successful.”

Willig has secured significant victories on behalf of other women’s players’ unions, helping to increase salaries and benefits for female players who historically have been paid significantly less than their male counterparts. In 2022, after 20 months of bargaining, Willig, together with her team at Willig, Williams & Davidson, helped the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association secure its first-ever collective bargaining agreement with increased salaries, free agency components, and significant provisions regarding player health and safety.

Willig is joined on the WNBA advisory committee by Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize-winning professor of economics at Harvard University; W. Charles Bennett, a fraud investigator and former FBI agent; Tag Garson, a sports and entertainment executive; and David Cooper, a communications specialist and professor at New York University.