NFL owners vote to opt out of labor contract

Actually, you have this backwards. That the players agreed to and ratified such a deal is the telling fact here. Upshaw doesn't negotiate CBAs without a player bargaining committee and plenty of input from the rank and field.

NFL players have never been willing to go to the mat. That's why the old timers have a shitty pension plan. That's why they have a salary cap. That's why they don't have guaranteed contracts. A union is only as strong as the solidarity of its membership and Upshaw hasn't had much to work with in that area.

Players and former players want the bennies but they've never understood they have to fight for them. My prediction: Like the former players now, the current players will come around in 20 or 30 years and ask for handouts that they weren't willing to fight for when they played.

 

Ask Rick Reed if he was ever treated like he had been a scab.

I believe it was John Franco, among others, who made it clear that is exactly how the hard-liners in the MLBPA saw Reed and those like him who accepted those invitations.

I'm not saying I agree with that opinion, but guys like Reed took their share of crap. It might even have been harder on them in the long run than the NFL scabs because so many established NFL players crossed before the strike ended in '87.

 

Playing in spring training games was considered participating in struck work and players -- Minor League and Major League -- were forewarned that they would be considered scabs. Rick Reed, unlike most of the other scabs, had parts of five or six Major League seasons before crossing the line in spring training. He knew better and deserved whatever crap he took.

 

Reed had spent parts of seven seasons in the majors, though to be fair, that includes two games in 1988 and one in 1991.

Here is a story Tim Kurkjian wrote on the subject in 2002.
http://espn.go.com/magazine/kurkjian_20020829.html

 

My point is that they were fucking spring training games, not regular season games broadcast as part of a national TV contract.

 

Now you are making a different point, and a valid one.

But you questioned if they were considered scabs and they most definitely were.

 

The difference is that the NFL was successful in using scabs to drive a wedge in the union and lure established players to cross the line. Of course, the networks were also obligated to pay for and show the sNFL cab games as part of their deals with the league, which helped.

It was such a debacle in MLB that even the people who ran baseball at the time were smart enough to quickly pull the plan off the table.

 

Nope. I don't have it backwards. He's spineless. When dealing with owners and his players.
But, you're right about the lack of solidarity with the players. Then, the "what happened" moments.

 

Spineless is one of the last words I'd use to describe Upshaw. What makes you think tough talk gets the job done in labor negotiations? He can play tough guy until he's blue in the face and the owners will just laugh at him until he has the full backing of his membership and becomes a valid threat.

Now, if you want to suggest that Upshaw and his team haven't led the players in the right direction or hasn't done a good job of preparing the membership, there's an argument to be made. But spineless, he's not.

 

Gee, it wasn't enough that taxpayers have been building them stadiums. Now they want the players to do so too?

It would be like a newspaper wanting its employees to build them a new printing press out of their own pockets. Oh wait, I think I just gave them a bad idea.....

 

Spineless not in reference to tough talk. We all know that's not a negotiator's place.
He's not a good union leader. Unless, you a star in the league. And, the owners like Gene. He's kind of like a mascot.