We interrupt this Sunday of NFL action for an update regarding the plans that the NFL is making for a potential work stoppage.
Jay Glazer of FOX reports that the NFL has for the first time communicated to league-office employees information regarding the ramifications of a potential work stoppage.
The three-phase plan begins in April, with a pay cut for Commissioner Roger Goodell and senior-level employees. The second phase would come a couple of months later, with “the majority” of league employees taking two unpaid furloughs. Phase three would involve larger-scale pay cuts and salary freezes.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello explained the situation in a statement, a copy of which we have received.
“Our employees are aware of both of the strident comments coming from
the NFLPA leadership for more than a year and the union’s current
actions to position itself to decertify and go out of business,” Aiello
said.
“Our employees want to know what we would do if despite our best
good-faith efforts, no agreement is reached. Our primary focus remains
on negotiating a new agreement.”
But here’s the thing. Decertification, if it happens, wouldn’t make a work stoppage more likely. Decertification would make a work stoppage less likely, since there would be no union to lock out.
Once again, everyone’s interests would be served if less time were spent posturing about a lockout and more time were spent reaching the agreement that everyone supposedly wants but that no one seems to be interested in trying to negotiate.
UPDATE: The league has disseminated the above quote broadly, and the Associated Press has obtained a response from the union. “It’s a shame that the NFL would put even more jobs at stake,” NFLPA spokesman George Atallah said in reference to the league-office employees who would be affected by the three-phase plan. “Neither the players, nor the employees that would be affected by this across the country, asked for this.”