Labor & Employment Law

NFL Players Prepare for Worst, Hope for Best in Contract Talks

By James Parks

NFL team owners have been preparing for a lockout for three years, but players continue to ?prepare for the worst and hope for the best,? George Atallah, assistant executive director of external affairs of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), said today.

Responding to readers? question in the Freakanomics column in The New York Times, Atallah said the real leverage in the negotiations comes from the fans understanding the facts about what?s going on. He says:

Enraging and threatening your employees is one thing, alienating your consumer base is an entirely different matter.

The owners have consistently refused to open their books so the players can make  a true assessment of the owners? financial situation, Atallah said. Read the full Freakanomics column here.

The team owners opted out of the contract two years before it expired, saying they weren?t making enough money. They want players to give back $1 billion in salary (an 18 percent cut) and play two more games per season.

One reader said what the NFL owners want  is really no different from what other CEOs have demanded of their workers. The reader continued:

… after what was arguably the most successful, profitable NFL season in history, the NFL owners are asking the players to take a pay cut, essentially in an effort to bring the NFL more in line with the larger American business model of the last 30 years, which in part is to keep American labor costs as low as possible, regardless of whether labor gets better at its job, and then pocket the resulting profits.

That echoes what David Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, said at a Washington, D.C., press conference yesterday. This dispute affects every worker, he said, and the NFL owners? demands on the players boil down to:

We want you to work more and pay you less and if you don?t agree we?ll lock the door. We?re watching the most powerful men in America tell workers to work longer for less pay. This is huge for everyone.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 11, 2011 (boomark / email).