No one is going to write songs about the NFL labor dispute.
There won’t be any odes to DeMaurice Smith and the players about their battle with the bosses, like this one written by Peter Hick and Geoff Francis about trade unions:
“It’s our union, our union that defends our rights, but our union’s as strong as our will is to fight.
For the union is you and the union is me, so stand up and stand by our union.”
The NFL players can hardly carry that tune because right now there is no union.
Maybe the players can chant, “Decertified NFL players of the world, unite!”
How strange is it that the players best, and realistically, only chance to win this battle for billions in revenue with the NFL owners is to no longer exist?
The NFL players have voted to decertify their union. I wonder if they followed the rules for decertification spelled out on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation? An organization that states, in it’s guide to decertification, “Most employees prefer a workplace where they are free to discuss their terms and conditions of employment directly with the employer, without intervention by a third-party.”
Not exactly we shall overcome, is it?
But this is the path the union, formerly known as the NFL Players Association, has taken — our best chance to win is to not exist.
I understand why. Decerfication allows its players to sue the NFL for antitrust violations, and, with the players now locked out by the owners, sets the stage for a court battle that begins on April 6 in a hearing on an injunction filed by the players to halt the lockout.
But what the decertification also does is reveal how little faith the union has in its ability for their so-called rank and file to stay together in any kind of labor battle.
Keeping the NFL players together on money is like trying to run a motorcycle gang. You have all sorts of uncontrollable factions, from Matt Hasselbeck and Antonio Cromartie’s Twitter battle in January — where Cromartie threatened to punch Hasselbeck in the face — to Adrian Peterson’s recent declaration that the NFL was like “modern day slavery.”
Do you really think these guys will stand firm as a brotherhood once the paychecks stop coming? They didn’t in 1982 and 1987 — both player strikes, as opposed to the owner lockout this time — and they would not now. This is why NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has written a letter to players directly, urging them to “encourage your union to return to the bargaining table and conclude a new collective bargaining agreement.”
No, the players need a judge to fight their battle for them.
This is not a matter of taking sides. The owners want a rollback on a deal they made, even though they are printing money with their NFL franchises. They have, for the most part, profited on the backs of their fans and public subsidies for new football palaces.
No, this is about just paving the way for football again, and the best chance for that to happen is in court — where the NFL players union doesn’t exist.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
