Essay on Sports Unions

To steal a term from Thomas Jefferson, labor unions can be looked at as a necessary evil. Necessary in the sense that unions provide a governing body for the working man. They insure that the employees in their union aren't exploited by their employer. They insure that employees receive proper benefits such as health care. They help workers earn fare wages.
There is also the perverse and malevolent side to labor unions. They can slow down the productivity of their workers. They can harm the fringe benefits that employees enjoy. A lot of the negative aspects of a labor union comes in the form of short term versus long term effects. Usually, the short term effects benefit the worker. As time ticks away though, problems with the short term benefits that labor unions provide start to show.
There is much debate about the pros and cons of labor unions. There is also much debate about the effectiveness of labor unions. Instead of asking the question about whether unions are needed in general or ask about their effectiveness in general, why not break it down into a specific area? How about asking the question of whether labor unions are needed in sports? To answer that question, let's first look into the type of unions that America's three most popular sports employ: baseball, basketball and then finish it off with football.
Unionization in sports has been around since baseball formed the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players in 1885 (History... pg 1). The main cause of that player's union was to try to repeal the reserve clause which didn't allow players to change teams. The reserve clause also put a cap on a player's salary. The Player's Association in place today was started in 1965 and successfully negotiated the first ever collective bargaining agreement in sports history in 1968 (History... pg 1).
This CBA set the tone for all other sports that followed. Although that's not what the frame workers had in mind, it's easy to see why baseball laid the foundation. Most noticeably, it raised the minimum salary level, it allowed for players to enter into arbitration over contract disputes and it led to the abolition of the reserve clause granting players a system of free agency that allowed for players to move to any organization they pleased when their contracts ran out (History... pg1). As the baseball industry grew, the first collective bargaining agreements allowed for the players to greatly benefit from the booming business.
But, business wasn't met without meddling owners trying to recoup from the sting left by the Player's Association. The owners got together during the off seasons of 1985, '86 and '87 and agreed to not pursue any free agents (History... pg 1). Players were forced to resign with their teams as all-stars and future hall of famers were left out in the cold not able to sign deals that resembled their market value. The Player's Association filed a grievance in all three collusion cases and were ultimately rewarded with $280 million in damages that went back to the players (History... pg 1).
Baseball's players union is regarded as the best and strongest union throughout sports. The union guided its players through eight different strikes, each time happening when a new collective bargaining agreement was up for renegotiation. Baseball also holds the distinction for the strongest strike when they revolted against the owners throughout the '94 and '95 seasons when the owners attempted to cut their salaries and benefits. This strike resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and the first work stoppage that led to a cancellation of any sport's postseason (History... 1).
Shifting focus onto another one of America's favorite sports, basketball created their player's association in 1954 which makes it the oldest current union in sports. The only problem was that the National Basketball Association didn't recognize the union until the night of the 1964 NBA All-Star game (About... pg 1). This all-star game was unlike any previous all-star games; this game was the first NBA All-Star game to be televised. All of the players playing in the game locked themselves into a locker room and came together, demanding that the NBA recognize the National Basketball Player's Union as the certified labor union representing the players and demanded that the owners negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. If not, the players wouldn't play in the event (About... pg 1). The players ultimately won in this dispute and salaries and benefits increased for the players at the time and steadily increased as the sport became more and more popular.
From the outside looking in, basketball operations have run very smoothly over the years with arguably the greatest commissioner any sport has every had in David Stern brokering relations between the owners and the players. Basketball set implemented a salary cap in 1983, becoming the first sport to ever do so (About... 1). This salary cap as well as structured pay levels based on years of service has helped maintain a balance between the owners and the players, as pay for both sides is about equal. Of course, basketball differs from baseball and especially football in that teams are only employing about twelve players. To put it into perspective, six football teams employ about the same amount of players the entire NBA employs.
The NBA hasn't been perfect though, as it has went through two work stoppages, one of which resulted in lost games during the 1998-99 season (About... pg 1). The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire after this next season and rumors are emerging that another work stoppage could happen. The general feeling among league officials is if another strike were to happen, the entire season would be lost.
The National Football League's unionization comes from a funny story in 1956 where members of the Green Bay Packers asked the owners for clean socks, jocks and uniforms during the summer for their second of two practices per day. The owners refused, and the players decided to join together to form a union (NFLplayers.com pg 1). Aside from providing the players with something as insignificant as clean clothes, the players also didn't have any health coverage, life coverage, pension plans, minimum salary or any protection for players who were injured in the games (NFLplayers.com pg 1). The owners did their best to refute the players' efforts to unionize, with the players taking the owners all the way to the Supreme Court. Once the Supreme Court ruled in favors of the players, the owners reluctantly agreed to grant the players their wishes.(NFLplayers.com pg 1)
Some trouble was faced once the NFL and the AFL merged together to form one league. Each league had their own union, and the AFL members were afraid their voice wouldn't be heard and they would be “swallowed up” by the NFLPA leaders (NFLplayers.com pg 1). Issues were smoothed out, and the newly formed player's association threatened to strike in the summer of 1970 but the owners threatened to cancel the season which would have been a detriment to the players because they were fighting to get more money for the upcoming season (NFLplayers.com pg 1).
The NFLPA was weak throughout the 70's. The MLBPA and the NBPA were both able to make ground fighting for their player's rights, but football's union wasn't able to. Striking didn't invoke any progress, so the union took the owners to court. While the union was able to get favorable rulings from the courts, support for the union itself was on the decline from the players as only half of the players in the league paid their union dues (NFLplayers.com pg 1). Even though, with the new collective bargaining agreements set in place, players were protected better and received better wages especially with the increases of revenue that each team was getting as the popularity of the sport grew (NFLplayers.com pg 1).
It was now 1982 and with popularity on the rise, stadiums began to fill more and more every Sunday. The owners' pockets became deeper and and deeper, but player salaries went unchanged. Once a player's contract was up, he wasn't able to successfully negotiate a better deal with a different team to receive fair-market value because the rules in place called for the team signing another team's free agent had to give up a first-round draft choice which was too much to give up just to sign a player, or that was the owners excuse (NFLplayers.com pg 1). The real culprit as to why players not receiving higher incomes was because the owners shared television and gate revenues on a nearly equal basis, so it didn't matter what player played where or what team brought in the most fans for their games, each team received an equal share so they weren't going to get into bidding wars with other teams for free agent players (NFLplayers.com pg 1).
With this realization, the players decided to strike, calling for 55% of league revenue to go towards the players. Player's pay was also based on performance with contracts structured around individual and team accomplishment (NFLplayers.com pg 1). After losing close to half the season, the players and owners were able to find a middle ground. While raising player wages as aforementioned, player benefits were also increased, most noticeably when it came to injury. Players received more medical coverage, were granted the right to a second opinion and their own doctor instead of being forced to use the teams' trainers and access to teams' medical records (NFLplayers.com pg 1). Aside from that, players were also granted access to other player's salary information to insure they were getting paid fair-market values (NFLplayers.com pg 1).
All three scenarios illustrate how beneficial a player's union was for the players. For one, the first issue to be resolved in all three sports was raising player salary levels and providing health standards. The next issue that all three sports addressed were reserve clauses that limited player movement. Free agency became beneficial to players because they were no longer bound to their original teams. Also, it enabled so that players were able to get fair-market value for their services.
Delving deeper into each of those issues, sports was a budding business in the late 60's to early 70's, which was also around the same time that each of these sports established unions. While baseball was already wildly popular at the time, the momentum for basketball and football was shifting upwards as well. Owners started making more and more money thanks to more and more people attending games as well as the extra revenue brought in from rich television contracts. Players were left out in the cold with this money, and it's the first issue that the unions sought to resolve.
Next health standards were of great concern for the players. These three sports in question all required the employees to place a very physical strain on their bodies, and none of the sports had any type of health and injury coverages until the unions demanded safety standards be written into the collective bargaining agreements. Also, the unions were able to bargain successfully on better retirement packages for ex-players once the game has passed them by, to use a cliché. The basketball great Larry Bird developed severe back problems throughout his playing days and if it wasn't for the money he made playing basketball and from basketball's retirement plans he would surely have had to file for full disability coverage before he turned forty years old (Schwartz pg 1). Sport and athletics have grown and become faster, more physical and more dangerous than ever before. Players really don't have the benefit of being able to work jobs in the off season as players did constantly in the olden days, or even during the season as Boston Celtic great and 1973 NBA MVP Dave Cowens did once (Hoppes pg 1).
Players needed protection, and the unions provided this protection. While a gold miner may develop physical problems over time doing the same strenuous activities, there are only a few circumstances where he injures himself so severely on the job that he isn't able to perform his job duties. One wrong step for a player or one funny landing or one funny collision and that player's career could ultimately be done. Players needed that extra coverage from their respective leagues in the form of their retirement plans.
The NFL still hasn't come to grips with this issue, as for the past few years the NFLPA has been in a constant struggle with the league to better their retirement plans and to provide more money for ex-players (McCann pg 1). One new development of the past few years that researchers have done is the dangers of head-on collisions, something that an NFL player goes through constantly every game and every practice. As ex-players are starting to age, the dangers of the game of football are becoming more and more apparent. For one, ex-players are showing signs of dementia and Alzheimer's at a much greater risk than the national public (Schwarz pg 1). There have also been multiple reports of ex-players who suffer through stages of depression and commit suicide. Just to show how severe of a problem this is, last December a player by the name of Chris Henry was killed after he fell out the back of a pick-up truck being driven by his fiancee. A study of his brain was done and it revealed that this 26-year old man had a deteriorating brain as a result to multiple blows to the head thanks in-part to playing football (Keating pg 1). As more and more studies like this are done on deceased ex-players the scary, violent nature of the sport rears its ugly head. But yet, the NFL has done their best to avoid this situation, and their health plans and retirement plans to protect the players that made the league billions of dollars are severely outdated. While the sport of football is the most brutal out of any other sport, it has arguably the weakest health care and retirement system for their players. If it wasn't for the union, it can easily be seen that the system would be even weaker than it is.
The other biggest innovation unions provided players was the freedom of movement. Player movement really is an interesting concept when researching the topic. The normal way that a player enters into a league is by playing the sport through high school, then through college and then being drafted by a professional team. It's not unlike other professions as normally doctors and lawyers and teachers all go through formal education, but once they graduate they are free to accept employment wherever they want, theoretically. That isn't the case when it comes to sports as when a player tries to enter into a league, whether it be baseball, basketball or football, he must declare himself eligible for that sport's amateur player draft. While each league has its own draft, the way that the drafts are conducted are different for each of the three leagues. Football and baseball both have a draft system where teams select players in an order based on their records with the worst team picking first and best team picking last for each round. In any other field, it would be safe to say that the best doctor or the best lawyer would want to work for the best hospital or the best law firm, but the NFL and MLB Draft is equivalent to that of the best and brightest teachers being forced to teach in the ghettos or slums. Basketball's draft is a system of chance, with each of the teams that did not make the postseason entered into a lottery with the worst team getting the best percent chance of winning the lotto.
But once a player was drafted, he was stuck on that team. Oddly enough though, while the league blocked player movement amongst players once their contract was up, teams reserved the rights to trade or sell players to another team. The most famous example of this? When the Boston Red Sox sold a pitcher named Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Players were basically enslaved by their teams. The union powers were able to step in and abolish these acts. It's not as if free agency would have happened anyway even without the unions, as aforementioned baseball and football teams colluded against free agents as far back as the mid 1980's.
So how do unions in sports operate today? Are sport labor unions necessary evils? To steal a phrase from Walter Block, “Unionism is a complex phenomenon which admits of a voluntary and coercive aspect” (Block pg 477). While it can be seen that unions were needed in the past to unionize the players for their protection, do sports really need labor unions now? That is a complex question in itself. While it wouldn't be too hard for any individual player to get fair-market value on his contract while being aided by their personal agents and lawyers, a player's union is necessary to make sure that the owners aren't trying to drive market prices down. While it may seem that wages for athletes keep going up and up, in reality that is not the case, and thankfully both the NFL and NBA are dealing with this same exact issue right now in their attempts to renegotiate their collective bargaining agreement.
Starting off with the NBA, thanks to the impacts of the economy over the past few years, owners have been losing more and more money per year. The NBA as a whole expected to lose around $400 million after this season (Tomasson pg 1). The Boston Celtics actually lost money after they won the championship in 2008. Over the past two years poorer teams have been constantly shipping away players to other teams and taking back far less than fair market value in an attempt to lower their overall salaries. It's not wonder why the owners are taking a hard stance against the player's union in renegotiation of a new CBA.
Here's where it gets dicey, the owners are basically asking for protection against themselves if they make poor decisions that don't pan out. They want to lower the maximum amount of years and the maximum amount of money that players can sign for. Currently, the system is set up that a player can sign a maximum contract of six years and around $120 million. The owners want to cut that down to around four years and around $60 million (the maximum wage levels fluctuate based on revenue each year) (Bucher pg 1). Considering that those are the contracts that the best of the best are getting, salaries will be pushed down for every player throughout the entire league. Basketball's player union is fighting vehemently against this from happening. Players will become more and more expendable and the league will take a giant step back and resemble the days when reserve clauses were in place as the owners will have a steep upper-hand over the players.
Considering that a professional athlete is only in their “prime”, or their peak performance level, for maybe five to seven years, athletes need all the security they can get from their employers. While they may not need a union to help them do anything individually, as a whole the union is needed in sports. Jason Evans and Walter Block used the quote “you cannot see the forest for the trees” to explain a “situation in which the main theme is ignored or misunderstood due to excessive focus on its components” (Block, Evans pg 72). While the writers used that statement negatively to explain looking at the long term effects of labor unions instead of the short term effects, that statement can be used in this situation as well to explain the overall effects of a labor union in sports instead of assuming that athletes themselves can receive wages at fair-market value, and that the market in it's entirety is of a fair-market.
While the ideas of job ownership are clearly outlined by Walter Block to be a myth, it would be safe to say that job security is not. While people easily discount the place of professional athletes in our society, being an athlete is no different than any other profession, be it a teacher, truck driver, accountant, journalist, etc. What if every job market resembled that of the professional athlete? Very high competition, very high turnover rates, very low job security as well as a paradoxical supply and demand structure where there is always going to be high demands for all but a few positions (it's safe to say the very best athletes don't have to worry about being replaced) but there is going to be a low supply of qualified players with the skill sets that teams are looking for to be able to fill those needs.
To correlate that over to another profession, let's say teachers, it would be like if every high school in Nevada competed against each other for the best graduation rates. Teachers signed contracts with schools, sometimes non-guaranteed, and on average only stayed at a certain school for a short amount of time. Teachers would no longer be employed upwards of thirty years in the profession. Teacher performance would be greatly scrutinized and examined on a daily basis. Schools wouldn't have a problem getting rid of a teacher if they believed they could hire a better one. How many people would seriously find themselves going into the teaching profession? Athletes spend countless hours throughout their childhoods and teenage years just to place themselves into the one-in-a-million chance range to become a professional athlete, how can the ones who break through be asked to acquire a totally different skill set five, ten, fifteen years after the game has passed them by? What if society asked those same questions for every profession?
While it's an obscure correlation, it works, because that's how the business of athletics operate. There is no tenure for an athlete. There is no guarantee of another job in the same profession if an athlete gets replaced. To use the same example of the teaching profession, while a teacher may be asked to move to another town or another state to find a different job if they happened to get laid off, athletes may be asked to move to another country entirely to find another job.
These are examples used to show just how valuable labor unions are to sports. While the unions throughout sports aren't perfect, they don't use the same tactics other unions throughout the nation have. When the last NBA and MLB strikes happened, scabs weren't employed by the owners in an effort to get some kind of money. Players weren't standing in front of stores picketing, disallowing people from buying memorabilia. The strikes throughout sports have been as “by-the-book” as they can be. The employees want to paid better wages or want better benefits and so they refuse to play. Either that or the employers want to pay their employees less and so they lockout their respective leagues and refuse to let their employees work. This is different from any other field of work in that if an employer were to refuse to let the employees work because the employer wanted to pay their employees lower wages, the employees could easily quit and find a different job. In professional sports, there are very few alternatives and those alternatives involve having to move to another country, so the owners do have some bargaining power over their employees.
The one exception is that when the employees, or players, decide to strike, the players are under contract to play for their teams, so technically they should be “compelled”, as Walter Block puts it, to work and are technically violating the rights of the owners if they refused to work (Block pg 481). But, the only way that employees are employed in professional sports is by that of a contract. The employee can't up and quit to find a better job just like the employer cannot fire the employee. The only way in sports to do just that is that of the employer buying out the contract of the employee at a level agreed upon by both parties.
In the coming months, both the NFL and NBA owners and unions will be engaged in a fierce renegotiation of their collective bargaining agreement. If the NFL doesn't make any progress on a new CBA, they face the possibility of a lockout after this season(NFLPA's... pg 1). If the NBA doesn't make any new progress, the league also faces a lockout next summer (Billy Hunter... pg 1). Owners want the pay the players less, unions are trying to prevent this from happening, or at least lessen the blow. It may be one of the few chances to get to be able to see and learn about first hand labor unions in work.