National Football League Players Association

NFLPA

National Football League Players Association
File:NLFPA logo.png
Founded	1956
Website	www.nflplayers.com

The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is the labor union of players in football's National Football League. It was founded in 1956, but only achieved recognition and a collective bargaining agreement several years later. After a lost strike in 1987, the union was formally decertified, converting into a professional association in order to pursue antitrust litigation designed to win free agency for its members. When that tactic worked it reformed as a union and resumed collective bargaining with the league in 1993.

Formation and recognition

The union formed in 1956 when football players on the Green Bay Packers and Cleveland Browns formed a union to demand that the clubs provide players with a minimum league-wide salary and per diem pay, uniforms and equipment paid for and maintained at the clubs' expense and continued payment of their salaries while they were injured and unable to play. Don Shula of the Baltimore Colts, Frank Gifford and Sam Huff of the New York Giants, and Norm Van Brocklin of the Los Angeles Rams led the organizing drive.

After collecting authorization cards from a majority of the players, the association went to the owners' meeting to discuss their demands. The owners never met with them and never responded to any of their proposals. Creighton Miller, a former Notre Dame football player turned lawyer, represented the union.

Unable to win their attention by organizing, the association threatened to bring an antitrust lawsuit against the league. That threat became much more credible when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U.S. 445 (1957), that the NFL did not enjoy the same antitrust immunity that Major League Baseball did. Rather than face another lawsuit, the owners granted most of the players' demands, but did not enter into a collective bargaining agreement with the association or formally recognize it as their exclusive bargaining representative.

The players continued to use the threat of antitrust litigation over the next few years as a lever to win better benefits, including a pension and health insurance plan, and payment for exhibition games. The league did not formally recognize the NFLPA as the players' exclusive representative or enter into a contract with it, however, until 1968, after an abortive organizing drive led by Bernie Parrish of the Cleveland Browns backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and a short lockout and strike. In 1970 the NFL and AFL Players Associations merged. That contract was a weak one, largely due to the fact that the union representing members of the former American Football League, which had just merged with the NFL, had accepted these terms.

Merger and progress

The NFLPA had chilly relations, at best, with its counterpart that represented AFL players. The NFLPA had attempted to block the merger of the two leagues in 1966, believing that the existence of a rival league gave individual players more bargaining power. After the two leagues merged, the two unions remained separate until 1970, when the AFL players, led by Jack Kemp of the Buffalo Bills, agreed to merge under the leadership of John Mackey of the Baltimore Colts. The employers continued, however, to treat the union lightly in negotiations, prompting the NFLPA to formally petition the National Labor Relations Board for union certification.

The newly merged union found itself in just as weak a position as it had been in before. While it won the right for players to bargain through their own agents with the clubs, improvements in pensions and impartial arbitration for injury grievances, it was unable to make much progress on its economic demands. The Association therefore returned to the tactic that it had used in the past: an antitrust lawsuit challenging the league's compensation clause, popularly known as "the Rozelle Rule." This rule allowed any team that lost a free agent to another team to receive something of equal value to his former team. This rule severely limited player movement, as few teams were willing to risk signing a high-profile free agent only to lose its next two first-round draft picks.

While that litigation proved successful, the union found that making progress in bargaining was harder to achieve. It eliminated the Rozelle Rule in bargaining in 1977 and obtained improved benefits and grievance procedures, but had not achieved true free agency or reached its goal of winning 55 percent of league revenues for players.

1982 strike

The 1982 NFL strike began on September 21, 1982 and lasted 57 days until November 16, 1982. During this time, no NFL games were played.

The essential cause of the strike was over a dispute over the percentage of gross revenues that the league gave to its players. The NFLPA wanted the percentage increased to 55 percent.

During this time, the NFLPA promoted two "all-star games." One was held at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. on October 17, 1982 between two teams billed as "National East" and "American East." On the following day, October 18, another game was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between players from the "American West" and the "National West."

Both teams wore generic uniforms, with the home teams wearing red and the visiting teams wearing white. The NFLPA had hoped that the league's biggest stars would show up for the game, but few of them did. Perhaps the biggest reason for this was that the players on strike had no health insurance and therefore were totally responsible for any injuries suffered on the field.

Neither game drew more than 20,000 spectators and the TV ratings (the games were syndicated by Turner Network Television) were abysmal in both cases. Although more all-star games had been scheduled by the NFLPA, none of them were ever played.

TV networks scrambled to make adjustments to their schedules. NBC added more Major League Baseball games and some Canadian Football League contests were also telecast. (Some of the CFL games featured the Edmonton Eskimos and their eventual Hall of Fame quarterback, Warren Moon.) CBS aired a rebroadcast of Super Bowl XVI the week after the strike began, then added editions of the CBS Sports Spectacular. On one Sunday afternoon, CBS aired regional coverage of two Division III college football games: one between Baldwin-Wallace College and Wittenberg University, and the other between the University of San Diego and Occidental College. ABC replaced Monday Night Football with movies.

As a result of the strike, the season schedule was reduced from 16 games to nine and the playoffs expanded to 16 teams (eight from each conference) for a "Super Bowl tournament." CBS and NBC aired regional telecasts on both days (Saturday and Sunday, January 8 and 9) of first round games. The Washington Redskins won the tournament by capturing Super Bowl XVII.

1987 strike and decertification

The NFLPA struck for a month in 1987. On this occasion, however, they only succeeded in canceling one week of the season. For the next three weeks, the NFL staged games with hastily assembled replacement teams. They were made up of several players cut during training camp, as well as a few veterans who crossed the picket lines. The television networks showcased these games as if these hastily assembled teams were the same quality as the veterans who were out on strike. Many of the league's owners had anticipated a strike and had put replacements on standby for $1,000 per game.

However, the NFLPA failed to set up a strike fund to cover lost salaries. Fearing that the owners would cut off their annuities, 89 players crossed the picket line.

Faced with cracks in union support, the willingness of the networks to broadcast the games and hostile public sentiment the union voted to go back to work on October 15, 1987--without a collective bargaining agreement. They had to wait another week to get back on the field, however, since they hadn't come back by the owners' deadline. It filed a new antitrust suit that same day.

The Court of Appeals ultimately rejected that suit on the ground that the labor exemption from antitrust liability protected the employers, even though the union was no longer party to a collective bargaining agreement that would have permitted the practices that the union was challenging. In response, the union formally disclaimed any interest in representing NFL players in collective bargaining and reformed itself as a professional organization in 1989. Having done that, the following year union members, led by Freeman McNeil of the New York Jets, brought a new antitrust action against the NFL challenging its free agency rules as an unlawful restraint of trade.

The players ultimately prevailed, after a jury trial on their claims, in that action. That verdict, the pendency of other antitrust cases and the threat of a class action filed by Reggie White, then with the Philadelphia Eagles, on behalf of all NFL players brought the parties back to the negotiating table. They finally agreed on a formula that permitted free agency in return for salary caps tied to a formula based on players' share of total league revenues.

Oddly enough, the Redskins, which won the Super Bowl after football resumed in 1982, did so again, this time by winning Super Bowl XXII. What's more, the Redskins had none of their regular players cross the picket lines during the period of replacement games. (The Replacements, a 2000 movie starring Keanu Reeves, is loosely based on the experiences of the Washington Redskins "scabs," which went 3-0 in the regulars' absence.)

Returning to collective bargaining

That settlement was presented to and approved by the judge who had heard the McNeil antitrust case in 1993. Once the agreement was approved the NFLPA reconstituted itself as a labor union and entered into a new collective bargaining agreement with the league. The NFLPA and the league have extended their 1993 agreement five times, most recently in March 2006 when it was extended through the 2011 season after the NFL owners voted 30-2 to accept the NFLPA's final proposal.

Current members

The executive director position is vacant following the August 21,2008 death of Gene Upshaw. The president is currently Kevin Mawae, a center with the Tennessee Titans. The executive committee for the NFLPA includes newly elected members: Domonique Foxworth of the Atlanta Falcons, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, and Mike Vrabel of the New England Patriots as new members of the executive committee. Re-elected members were: Brian Dawkins of the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeff Saturday of the Indianapolis Colts, Mark Bruener of the Houston Texans, Tony Richardson of the New York Jets, Kevin Carter of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Keenan McCardell a free agent and Donovin Darius also a free agent. On August 21,2008 ESPN reported that Richard Berthelsen, who has served as the general counsel of the NFLPA since 1983, will serve as interim executive director for the union. [1]

Leaders

Executive Director

• John Gordy (January 16, 1969-November 1, 1969)
• None (November 1, 1969-1971)
• Ed Garvey (1971-June 13, 1983)
• Gene Upshaw (June 13, 1983-August 21,2008)
• Richard Berthelsen (August 21,2008-Present) as Interim Executive Director

President

• Bill Howton (January 26, 1958-January 4, 1962)
• Pete Retzlaff (January 4, 1962-January 5, 1964)
• Ordell Braase (January 5, 1964-January 8, 1967)
• Mike Pyle (January 8, 1967-January 11, 1968)
• John Gordy (January 11, 1968-January 16, 1969)
• John Mackey (January 16, 1969-1973)
• Bill Curry (1973-May 31, 1975)
• Kermit Alexander (May 31, 1975-March 8, 1976)
• Dick Anderson (March 8, 1976-January 26, 1978)
• Len Hauss (January 26, 1978-1980)
• Gene Upshaw (1980-April 25, 1986)
• Marvin Powell (April 25, 1986-March 4, 1988)
• George Martin (March 4, 1988-June 13, 1989)
• Mike Kenn (June 13, 1989-March 23, 1996)
• Trace Armstrong (March 23, 1996-April 1, 2004)
• Troy Vincent (April 1, 2004-March 19, 2008)
• Kevin Mawae (March 19, 2008-Present)

External references

[2] [3]