In case you missed it: NFLPA Head, Smith, wants to permanently decertify the NFL players' union

[Godhumor]

From May 27th:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-silver_nflpa_could_stay_permanently_decetified_052711

Back in March of 2009, when he was elected to succeed the late Gene Upshaw as the NFL Players Association’s executive director, DeMaurice Smith considered himself the ultimate union man.

Two years later, when Smith announced that the NFLPA would decertify and become a trade association after negotiations with league owners on a new collective bargaining agreement broke down, most people assumed that this was a temporary tactical maneuver designed to allow players to seek leverage through the legal system. The NFL has enunciated this argument in a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the NFLPA’s move to decertify and become a trade association was a sham.

Smith, however, insists that he has embraced decertification as an enduring state of existence, much in the same way that Upshaw did in the early ’90s before – at the NFL’s insistence – he agreed to re-form the union. In an interview with Y! Sports earlier this month, Smith revealed that he envisions navigating the NFLPA through a union-free future, even after a possible settlement of the Brady et al antitrust lawsuit and a new contractual agreement between players and owners.

“I’ve come full circle,” Smith said as he sat in a downtown Bethesda plaza, a few miles from the NFLPA’s Washington D.C. headquarters, on a sunny spring morning. “When I went into this, my attitude was that the only way you have power is collectively, and I believed in unions as vehicles for employees asserting their rights. But looking back on what Gene experienced and understanding this particular situation, I’ve now come to appreciate the value of decertification in our particular circumstance. And I don’t see why we’d want to go back to being a union.”

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It is thought that not having a union would allow players more power in anti-trust issues, and, oddly enough, the owners will insist that players reform the union after the labor stoppage is settled.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. The topic is a little more subtle that it seems on its face

NFL players may get a better collective deal by not having a formal union. That is not the same as abandoning collective efforts etc, but finding a more effective way given the unique set of circumstances of the NFL.

[Godhumor]

2. I agree, as I was trying to point out in my follow-up sentence. It is a strange situation

Somehow I don't think this stoppage will be decided in the short-term.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Professional sports are a unique structure with special laws and court decisions

There are those that will see the lack of a union as some sort of horrific evil, and ignore the very unique circumstances for the players. Even if there is a season, I quite agree that the labor/management issues will indeed be a long term issue.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. The distinction between union and trade association isn't obvious.

Witness the AMA, if ever there was a "union" which delivered the goods for the membership, it's the AMA.