It is hard to imagine that Senator Robert F. Wagner (D, NY), the primary sponsor in 1935 of the National Labor Relations Act, could have intended that it would apply to the current dispute between the National Football League and its union, the National Football League Players Association. Afterall, it was a law designed to balance the power between powerful and at the time otherwise unchecked corporations and unions made up of working men and women. The NLRA was an attempt at democratizing the workplace by providing workers an opportunity collectively bargain about their working conditions. With the minimum NFL player salary in 2010 at $325,000, which puts the lowest paid NFL players in the top 1% of all wage earners in the country, collective bargaining for such "workers" takes on a whole new meaning.
The pressure strategies traditionally used by management and labor to effect a resolution in impacted negotiations seem incongruent when applied in the NFL context. One of the historic strategies in dealing with an intransigent union was the lock-out, in effect the opposite of a strike. For instance, in a strike, the workers withhold their services, sacrificing pay to put economic pressure on the employer to settle negotiations by shutting down the means of generating revenue. Conversely, in a lockout, the employer prevents the workers from working by literally locking the company doors, sacrificing revenue generation to put economic pressure on the workers who will be prevented from earning their pay. In the best of times, and there are no "best of times" in a labor dispute, it is a high-stakes game of "chicken." Whoever flinches first loses.
But in the NFL dispute, such pressure tactics seem irrational and ineffective. While the lockout may put the pinch on the lowest paid players, the higher paid players should be able to hold out for some time. And the owners, multi-millionaires everyone of them (except for my beloved Green Bay Packers) are also sufficiently able to get by without revenue generation. Which is why the players union exercised the so-called nuclear option of decertifying themselves, thereby making the owners vulnerable to anti-trust lawsuits for restraining trade. Now there is a concept--restraint of trade--that seems incongruous as applied to football. The idea is that by restricting the movement of players based on what the market will bear (salary cap, restrictions on free agency, etc.), the best players are losing the opportunity to make even more money.
At some point, it seems, the owners and the players union have forgotten why they exist. Sure the players may love the game and play it purely for the enjoyment they receive. And I'm equally confident that the owners love the game and the enjoyment they receive watching talented players play the game at a high level. But if it weren't for the fans who pay their hard earned money to watch the games, how would either the owners or the players earn their money? In the immortal words of Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?" Now is the time for resolution and rationality. Training camps are just a little more than three months off and the Green Bay Packers have a Super Bowl championship to defend..