Labor & Employment Law

NFLPA?s Smith Gives Solidarity Shout Out to Machinists

By Mike Hall

During a recent fan appreciation event in Green Bay, Wis., DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), told fans the NFLPA has had a long relationship of solidarity with the union movement, especially with the Machinists (IAM). The Players face a lockout next year by owners.   

Smith, who was raised in a union family, said he was wearing a jacket from ?the fighting Machinists? that day because  

not only have they joined us in this fight, but what most people don?t know is that when our union was founded and we couldn?t take care of ourselves, the fighting Machinists took care of us, they gave us an office, they gave us a loan they took care of our football players union when we couldn?t stand on our own two feet.

Earlier this year, several NFLPA players appeared at an IAM conference in Florida in support of NASA workers who were facing layoffs because of the end of the U.S. manned space program. At the event, IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger put it this way:

The Players Association is in the midst of a struggle that should sound familiar to union members anywhere. Team owners are proposing historic cutbacks while making unprecedented profits. The circumstances may be different, but the need for workers to stick together is the same everywhere, whether it?s at NASA, at Delta Airlines or the NFL.

The owners terminated the collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA a year early, claiming they were losing money. In negotiations that have lasted more than a year, the owners continue to threaten a lockout and make demands for more work for less pay. In addition, there is no guaranteed health care for players who are injured and players must play for three seasons before they are eligible for only five years of post-career health care.

The players and stadium workers who would lose their jobs in a lockout have the full support of the union movement. In individual letters to each NFL team owner, the three top AFL-CIO officers said a conservative estimate is that a lockout would cost thousands of jobs and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each NFL city. They strongly urged the owners to think about the stadium workers, hotel and restaurant workers, and ?thousands of other working people who support [your team] as dedicated employees and fans.?

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 15, 2010 (boomark / email).