ASB MAGAZINE: Burton have announced they will amend athletes contracts to ensure they are protected during pregnancy. According to Burton, American middle distance runner Alysia Montaño’s story in the New York Times, titled ‘Nike Told Me to Dream Crazy, Until I Wanted a Baby’ is the unfortunate status quo for women who become professional athletes, with sponsors often forcing hard decisions for mothers. Burton believes that no one should be forced to choose between a career and a family. As such, the company has made key amendments to its athletes contracts to support women who spend their lives pushing the boundaries.
Ever since Burton’s Kimmy Fasani paved the way over a year ago by deciding to continue her professional snowboarding career through pregnancy, Burton have been exploring ways to reaffirm its commitment to its athletes who may want to make the same choice.
“To make sure our sponsored athletes never have to go through what runner Alysia and others endured, we’re changing all female athlete contracts worldwide effective immediately to include language that supports and protects women during and after pregnancy,” the company announced via its website.
This means:
- Pregnancy will not be considered a medical condition.
- Burton will not reduce or suspend compensation for pregnancy/maternity reasons for twenty-four weeks (= six months).
- Burton will work with its pregnant athlete(s) to identify reasonable accommodations to athlete’s contractual obligations.
- Burton will not terminate a contract for pregnancy/maternity reasons.
- Burton will reimburse for a companion air ticket for any appearance required of Athlete during the time she is breastfeeding her child.
Burton Chief Marketing Officer Sarah Crockett announced the changes to Burton athletes by saying;
“We respect you as whole people, and value your contributions to the sport of snowboarding, but also so much more than that. This is a partnership that has many dimensions and ensuring that this doesn’t lapse in times where you are growing your family is incredibly important to us, and we know it’s important to you as well,” said Crockett.
ENDS.
