Here's the link: http://sports.yahoo.com/mls/news/ap/20021007/ap-mls-supremecourt.html I don't know what to think about this yet. Don't know if I like it though.
Thread title meant to have an 's' at the end of Player. If mods could change that it'd be great. Thanks.
I can't see how a union would do the players any good right now. What are they going to do, strike if they don't get paid more? The league is loosing money. You can't ask your employeer for a raise if the company isn't making money. You should be happy as hell your employeer doesn't lower your wage.
This is EXTREMELY problematic for MLS. These guys are looking a gift horse in the mouth. Bad, bad, bad idea.
As long as this is done without the NFL and John Kerr Sr sticking their noses in it, it's fine with me. JKSr screwed up the NASL players union which helped the league go out of business in the first place. He's been involved in these previous MLS lawsuits as well. Maybe they can get some help from the PFA in England or something. I hope there is strong leadership amongst the players who can see this through.
Forming a players union won't change the fundamental ecomonic limitations of MLS right now, and the players have got to be smart enough to know that. So everyone predicting doom for the leage due to the players having a union assumes that the players will make unwarranted and unmeetable demands for salary increases and go on strike to get them and cause the league to collapse. Do you really give MLS players that little credit for their collective intelligence??!!?? The players could get lots of other things other than massive wage increases, like improvements in the standard player contracts to give more job security, perhaps a higher minimum salary (the current minimum is an insult to even a very mediocre pro player), and perhaps a greater voice for the players in deciding some league policies. Maybe a players union could've put pressure on the league to aviod throwing away money on stupid acquisitions like Lothar Mattheus and Luis Hernandez!!
IMO the league cannot survive with unionized players. Salaries will rise too quickly and by 2006 I wouldn't be surprised if the owners just said the hell with it and closed up shop. And a word for any players out there lurking around bigsoccer. The first time you strike, the FIRST time, I won't come back. I haven't come back from the baseball strike in '94? and I won't put up with you driving a knife in the back of American soccer. Yes, you should be paid more, yes, you're talented, yes, the owners are billionares, but they didn't make their money from MLS, and drawing 7,000 for a playoff game isn't going to pay the bills. Without MLS most of you would be selling used cars or coaching high school soccer teams. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, even if it's not as much as you'd like. Just my opinion. Take it or shove it.
Hear hear. The players know what the score is, and the more intelligent of them should be included in some league issues. Imagine, asking the players what they think would make the league better. Novel, eh? Player movement rules open to all. Minimum salary above the poverty line. Career ending injury insurance at a group rate. League public information policy A significant increase in cap room to allow teams to stay together and develop talent. Minimum practice facility requirements. NO more jack@ss owners like Horowitz. What if the players had had a voice in what a jerk Ken H was? Maybe they would not have contracted two teams.
All of you people who are already crying about the sky falling if the players unionize aren't seeing the big picture here. You want a looser SEM? You want to move towards each team adhering to a straight salary cap, instead of the centralized structure now? Then you need to have a collective bargaining agreement between the two parties - management and players - first. Even if the owners decided tonight they wanted to let each team do it's thing along the lines of a cap, they couldn't, or it would be antitrust (as I understand it). As I also understand it (I'm no labor lawyer) you need to have a union (not a players association) to strike a CBA. So this is a necessary step, and could lead to something good for all, possibly.
I generally agree with your post, but I do really give John Kerr that little credit, so I'm hoping that the players run far far away from the NFLPA and find some other sugar daddy union.
Indeed. If ANY pro sports league's players need a union in this day and age, it's MLS'. by far. The other major league player's unions in this country have, by and large, outlived their usefulness. MLS players have no rights or say in how this league is developing. That needs to change. If handled properly (at this point the players won't do anything to truly eliminate their job opportunities) this can only mean a better league with happier parties involved on both sides.
I don't really have a problem with them unionizing, there's a lot of things they get steamrolled by MLS on. However, I agree that if they EVER strike without a REALLY, REALLY good reason, I won't come back.
Look, these guys don't get much of anything beyond some really cool free stuff. They are long overdue for stuff like Family Health and Dental, Long Term Disability, some rules to prevent them being forced to play in crap like Copa Merconte, as the Metros did last year, for $42 a player. Just the basics. Since the owners have refused to do the right thing and provide this stuff (which any McDonald's employee can get) then they really have no choice but to get together and ask for it as a group. The lawsuit, funded entirely by a bunch of millionaires for their own purposes on behalf of a sham Union which was decertified a couple years ago anyway when they felt it would help their position in the lawsuit, accomplished nothing except to prevent real negotiations with the owners. The claim that USSF should have certified two Div 1 pro leagues instead of just one in order to "create competition for players" despite the fact that no other country on Earth has more than one, was so absurd on the face of it that only a lawyer could argue it with a straight face. And the players knew it better than anyone else. And Frazier ceased to be about "monopoly" and all that a long time ago. Early on, the judge dismissed that portion of the lawsuit, since all you had to do was look at the way the ownership was set up to see that it IS in fact a partnership, not 10 competing entities. So they haven't had a real argument in a long time anyway. There have been several different groups, lawyers mostly, who have wanted to start an MLS Players Union for some time. Everybody was waiting until the last dog was hung on the lawsuit. As fans, we tend to be opposed to anything which might threaten the existence of the League as a whole, so this sort of thing scares us a little, as well it should. But as someone noted above, if they can stay away from mindless, ego-driven leaches like John Kerr Sr., who had a big share in killing off the NASL and would like nothing better than to take the MLS out on strike because it makes him a big shot in American Soccer, they'll be OK. And the players know, (even if assholes like Kerr don't) that the day they walk out is the day their jobs disappear. Forever.
I don't have an issue with unions, in the other major sports, with large TV deals, merchandising and millions of fans per team, the players need to ensure they are getting their deal of the pie. Additionally they want some ability to be dealt with as other than a 'depreciable asset'; i.e. free agency, no-trade clauses, etc. and they have every right to get their 'fair share'. However, what I hear on these boards and the quote in the article go to them wanting influence over decisions that aren't theirs (deciding who the league hires as marquee players??!!) or wanting to get paid more money out of a pot that doesn't exist yet. (The operative word is yet.) To quote the referenced article: ************************* Kessler said the players decided to sue in court rather than bargain for improvements to avoid the lockouts and strikes that tend to follow collective bargaining in professional sports. But they also thought it was their best shot at dismantling the single entity structure that keeps MLS teams from competing against each other for players. ************************** Hello...while there are 10 teams there aren't nearly that many owners! What do they expect to accomplish? Let's get some TV deals, some strong steady streams of income before looking for escalating salaries....or are we saying the marquee players will take less money so the minimum salary can go up? If they want to unionize now to begin to go after issues that affect their health, their rights of transfer, etc. and thereby get themselves on their feet as partners with the MLS in the success of soccer in America - yeah go for it, I am behind it 100%. If it is a play to dismantle the single entity structure of MLS so that the clubs will compete in a bidding war for players...they are way premature and don't have my support. BTW if you are one of the people who don't want Demarcus or Clint to go to Europe, be careful what you wish for here.
They players deserve to have a union if they want one. Let them get themselves organized so that when the time comes they can fight the battles that need to be fought. The danger lies in the same area where the lawsuit emerged. Almost all of the players realize that litigation and strikes and such are contrary to the health of the league. But when you get a couple of washed-up nobodies ("MLS players" with nothing to lose but their A-League and PDL careers) who are willing to be plaintiffs, that's one thing. If those jerks get in control of the union, they can try to litigate things the membership doesn't want and that are harmful to the rest of the league. The organized players unions also tend to support measures that help journeymen veterans (who are already members) and hurt newcomers, outsiders, and rookies (like rookie salary caps and such). Still, I'm sure the players have issues such as health care and dental plans and such that could be addressed through the vehicle of a union just as any group of employees does. If they choose their battles wisely, it's a good thing. If a bunch of litigious jerks take control of the union, they can drag the league down around their ears.
Not to disagree, but those guys were the defendants because they were their respective MLS Team's elected Player Reps.
Garber has said repeatedly that MLS would much rather negotiate with a players union than go thru the lawsuit.
Good post, but just for the record the MLS players do get medical/dental/vision coverage for themselves as well as spouses and dependents. They have no retirement benefits, and I don't know about disability.
Disability and a retirement plan should be on the bargaining table and will likely be agreed to rather quickly. Out of curiosity, don't you think MLS execs have some kind of qualified retirement plan? A gut reaction tells me the ONLY reason they don't have these already is because MLS knew they'd have to bargain over them when a union formed, and the players just managed to delay that day by seven years by filing the antitrust suit. Given the single entity status of MLS, its tenuous financial shape, and the competition from other foreign leagues, I can't imagine a players union being successful with militant demands. Since the NFLPA seems to be advocating the all-or-nothing approach, it may be that the real battle is over which organization will get a majority of the players to select it as the bargaining agent. Hopefully, there will be a reasonable alternative.
Well they just talked about it for a second on the Tony Kornheiser show. Except they all said that the MLS players are lucky to have a league to play in and if they don't like it they can go chop meat for a living. I think that they should have some sort of a union.