San Diego Union Tribune, February 10, 2011, Thursday

San Diego Union Tribune

February 10, 2011, Thursday

San Diego Union Tribune

Collective bargaining requires patience for the plays to develop
By Tim Sullivan

Like quilting, scrimshaw and ice dancing, collective bargaining has severe limitations as a spectator sport.

It is too tedious for television and, on most days, more nuanced than newsworthy. It is a complex competition conducted primarily behind closed doors and, often, over a period of many months. Even when the opposing factions are professional football owners and players, labor negotiations are a mating dance as staged by snails.

“If you worry about the day-to-day part of it as a casual observer, you’ll go crazy,” said David Carter, executive director of USC’s sports business institute. “You don’t know what is real and what is sent up as a trial balloon. You really have to take a step back and wait.”

Much as we might wish to find meaning in the maneuvers of the NFL’s management and its muscular union members, this is a bad time for transparency. Both sides are too busy striking poses, probing for weaknesses and disseminating propaganda to expect either candor or substantial progress before the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement expires March 3. Those who would attach any significance to the abrupt cancellation of Thursday’s scheduled negotiating session are likely mistaking a calculated ploy for a more serious problem.

Like a patient passer confident in his blocking, fans should take a seven-step drop and allow the play to develop a little longer. They ought to be able to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the two bargaining positions without becoming unduly influenced by their rhetorical blather.

Because NFL owners had the foresight to negotiate television contracts that will keep cash flowing even in the event of a lockout, it would appear they are better provisioned for a long siege. Because both history and Twitter tell us NFL players lack the solidarity of their baseball brethren — witness the internecine barbs between Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie — experience says the union will eventually cave.

But both sides are made up of people with varying levels of leverage and different thresholds of desperation. While the cash-flow concerns of the prolific Cromartie are exacerbated by the many mouths he must feed, his employer also labors beneath massive obligations. According to Forbes’ 2010 franchise evaluations, the Jets carry the NFL’s largest debt load at approximately $750 million.

“You should keep an eye on whether there are differences emerging between the star players and the average players and between the well-off owners and the ones who are struggling financially,” said Harry Katz, dean of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “The interests of stars are different than average players. Average players are worried about health insurance and minimum (salaries). Stars are interested in how quickly they can get to free agency.”

Owners, too, operate with different agendas. Though the Chargers are comparatively unburdened by debt, and might withstand a lockout better than some of the league’s more leveraged teams, the franchise’s future in San Diego could hinge on ownership’s ability to replenish the NFL’s “G-3” stadium loan program as part of a new collective bargaining agreement.

Ultimately, though, the deal is about dollars. Owners are seeking a second billion off the top of annual revenues now estimated between $8-9 billion. The union prefers a 50-50 split. Whether 18-game schedules, rookie wage scales and expanded drug testing are ownership priorities or just bargaining chips may be many months from resolution.

“The fundamental thing to keep in mind is both sides lose income if there’s an impasse,” Katz said. “If they don’t settle, it’s generally because one side miscalculates the strength (of the other).

“My gut is they’re going to settle, that they’re not that far apart. Neither one is desperate. They’ve bargained before, so they know each other. With the amount of money that’s at stake here … they’ve just got too much to lose.”

San Diego State’s sports business MBA candidates reached that same conclusion in a classroom exercise last November. With an assist from former NFL executive Jim Steeg, Gangaram Singh divided his class into teams and spent two days simulating the NFL’s collective bargaining experience. Students staged strategic storm-outs, conducted news conferences and regularly raised their voices, but four of the six groups succeeded in reaching a compromise. Two groups required arbitration.

“One of the things I do in my simulation is to reflect what happens in reality,” Singh said Thursday afternoon. “A lot of times what is played out in the media is a show. They’ll even plant things to throw off the other side …

“It’s a very complicated process. Seasoned negotiators would use all sorts of strategies and, to a layman, some of them would seem pretty bizarre.”

Like sausage-making, collective bargaining is best viewed from a distance. Ideally, as a finished product.