National Football League Players Association to decertify before lockout
The National Football League (NFL) and the Players Association (NFLPA) have until 3rd March to work out a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). If the two sides cannot sign an agreement by then, NFL owners have threatened to lockout the players.
The NFL and the players union concluded seven straight days of negotiations last Thursday. Those meetings were mediated by the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), George Cohen, and at his request neither side has released any
information regarding the progress of the negotiations.
After the final day of negotiations, Cohen released a prepared statement in which he said that the two sides had made very little progress despite such concentrated efforts. The League and the union will continue negotiations on 1st March but
a labour deal is not expected to be signed.
The players union is resorting to a wait and watch approach. Unless real progress is made in the final days of negotiations, the NFLPA is likely to pre-emptively decertify before they can be locked out by the owners. The current CBA was signed in 2006 and
expires at midnight on Thursday. If the players union does not decertify by that time, it must wait six months before decertification can take place.
If the players association decertifies as a union, the National Labour Relations Board will no longer have any authority over them. Before the mediated negotiations began, the NFL filed a complaint with the National Labour Relations Board accusing the players
union of 'surface bargaining.' The complaint also claimed that the players union had no cause to decertify and that it was a strategic move to put pressure on the NFL. If the union is dissolved, the NFL will no longer be protected from anti-trust lawsuits.
If the union decertifies, NFL owners will likely challenge the decertification with the labour relations board. The players association has been going from team to team to get approvals from players in preparations for a lockout. NFLPA's executive director,
DeMaurice Smith has been given the authority to dissolve the league if the players are locked out.
Once the union is dissolved, players could very well challenge an owner imposed lockout. The battle then will be taken to the court of federal judge Dave Doty, who has jurisdiction over legal wrangles between NFL players and owners. After decertification,
players could file injunctions which could prevent owners from locking out the players. Unless NFL owners can block the union from decertifying, the NFLPA will have the upper hand in the labour dispute.
It has also been rumoured that the NFLPA deliberately leaked details of its plan to decertify before the owners lock them out. NFL owners are scheduled to meet on the final day of the current CBA to decide a future course. The threat of decertification could
buy more time in the negotiations and put pressure on the owners to cave in to players’ demands.
At the core of the labour dispute is the question of revenue sharing. NFL owners and players currently split all revenue 50-50. Revenue has been split roughly the same way since the early 2000’s. The 2006 collective bargaining agreement changed very little.
The owners however, still insist that the deal is far too favourable for the players. They argue that the current financial model is not sustainable and instead want another billion dollars from total revenue to cover the expenses of running the NFL. The
players union however, has refused to take such a drastic pay cut.
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