I was just reading old posts. Your post is a good one but lets take a look at your marijuana charge:

Yes, the employer should be allowed to fire them after the fact if the knowledge being found out by a client would jeopardize the relationship with that company.

Lets take it one step further… the marijuana smoking employee in your example knows that the company they just agreed to work for has a history of punishing employees for past behavior and the company has said right from the very start that punishment for past behavior is likely to occur.

Your marijuana smoking employee went into a working relationship with the company with the exact same foreknowledge the company went into with the employee.

In the case of Benson nobody is surprised here. Everyone knew Benson was a dirtbag and everyone knew the league would suspend him. The Bengals thought it was better to have Benson for part of the season than for none of the season and Benson thought the same thing, otherwise both parties wouldn’t have agreed to his working there.

Nobody surprised anyone with the outcome. It was the expected outcome. Benson is a dirtbag and the League is over-reaching. And the sun rose this morning and the sun set last night.

Your argument does not hold any water. The NFL, through the Cincinnati Bengals, hired Cedric Benson with “background check” in hand. The NFL allows its teams (the team owners in fact “own” the NFL) and employ Roger Goodell as their Commisioner. The NFL knows and knew Cedric Benson’s history before they allowed him to re-enter the league by hiring him as a free agent.

The NFL (employer) basically allowed Cedric Benson to be hired back into the league, knowing full well that he had a history and that he had legal action pending. They want their cake and to eat it too.

To those commenting, can you put your bias toward Cedric Benson aside. Perhaps Benson would have accepted a 1-game suspension, likely not, but perhaps. You have a player here that was not in a union and was not an employee. He pled “no contest” to the charge. He may have been guilty, he may not have been. He didn’t plead guilty. He actually pled to the benefit of himself and to taxpayers. Quick trial. He painted, mopped floors, etc… for a reducted sentence and was out of jail soon enough not to impact him and his team in terms of the start to the season.

What would happen if an employer found out an employee smoked marijuana when he/she was in college before hiring them, after said employee passed a blood/urine test and was hired. Let’s assume the employee was entirely truthful on their application. Should an employer be allowed to fire them without cause?

In this case the NFL and NFLPA tried a work-around to the detriment of Cedric Benson. You can’t blame the guy for trying to stand up to the big boys? I don’t like the guy…at least some of his past actions…but you have to admire him for standing up for himself and any employee that has been fed to the wolves by a union and/or treated like a sheep by an employer.

Benson’s case may have a stronger chance than others since he was a free agent and not under contract of any NFL team.

The NFLPA didn’t really have the right to single out some of its members as sacrificial lambs…especially since they were not a union (according to them) during the lockout.

My prediction: Benson wins his case against the NFLPA and the letter is voided because they can’t single out specific players, thereby making all players susceptible to the conduct policy for lockout time-frame issues. Benson gets suspended anyway (since he is no longer being singled out) and no other “new” suspensions for lockout stuff will be pursued by the league.

“cedric just serve the suspension. cuz chances are with u being the moron u are your most likely gonna do something by the end of the season to get arrested again”

I bet Cedric can put together a more coherent sentence than you just did. School much?

All discrimination isn’t illegal. Every company discriminates, every day. They discriminate between talented and untalented employees. They discriminate between lazy workers and hard workers.

Discrimination is only illegal if it is based on certain types of suspect classifications. Race. Religion. National origin.

Discriminating on the basis of criminal record? That’s perfectly legal. Employers refuse to hire ex-cons every day of the week.

“What was the NFLPA supposed to do if the NFL refused to budge? Hold up the entire CBA over it?”

Yes, they were. A union is obligated to protect *all* of it’s dues-paying members. Anything less is a breach of their agreement.”

Uh, no. Wrong. In every collective bargaining agreement … every single one … some subset of employees get screwed. Whether it’s workplace rules, or seniority, or something else, some group winds up getting a better deal than some other group. That’s the way it works.

When the NFLPA negotiated a rookie wage with the NFL, they screwed this year’s rookies, and every rookie class for the next ten years. Do you think that Cam Newton was happy about the deal that the NFLPA cut on his behalf? Do you think he would have rather gotten Stafford money?

I’m afraid that you don’t understand the responsibilities of a union to its members, in a collective bargaining context.

“What was the NFLPA supposed to do if the NFL refused to budge? Hold up the entire CBA over it?”

Yes, they were. A union is obligated to protect *all* of it’s dues-paying members. Anything less is a breach of their agreement.

So, his off-field conduct may not have gotten him the big payday contract, but he should sue the hell out of the NFLPA – he might even recover something there.

richm22 says:
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“Benson remained under contract during the lockout. He wasn’t free to go sign with any other NFL team. In essence, all NFL players were “suspended” during the lockout; they weren’t “NOT EMPLOYED” by their teams. If they WERE, they would have been able to sign with any team they wanted to once the lockout was over.”

Benson was NOT under contract. he was a free agent, and YES, he could have signed with any team when the lockout was over.

You have to draw a line between the NFL and the NFLPA on this one.

As far as the NFL is concerned, I think there’s a legitimate case to be made that they cannot enforce league rules with respect to conduct during a lockout.

However, the NFLPA seems to have handled this in an appropriate manner. Have you read the actual letter? It says that no one other than the eight listed players can be disciplined for conduct during the lockout.

What was the NFLPA supposed to do if the NFL refused to budge? Hold up the entire CBA over it?

In effect, what the NFLPA did was protect everyone but eight players. And, with respect to the eight, they said to Goodell, “we hear you, but we aren’t agreeing to anything.” They didn’t accede to the imposition of discipline on Benson. They simply didn’t include him on the list of people … everyone in the union, except for eight guys … protected from discipline.

And that let the season go forward.

Benson may win his appeal against the NFL. There’s no way he should be able to blame the NFLPA for this one, though.

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Benson remained under contract during the lockout. He wasn’t free to go sign with any other NFL team. In essence, all NFL players were “suspended” during the lockout; they weren’t “NOT EMPLOYED” by their teams. If they WERE, they would have been able to sign with any team they wanted to once the lockout was over.

As a “suspended” employee, they are still accountable for their actions during the lockout. Benson committed a crime, and even served his sentence, during the lockout, while he was still technically a Bengals employee, a “suspended” one. The NFL has every right to discipline him for those actions.

They agreed, however, to not use that right, if the “union” agreed to not contest the suspension of thos eight players. Benson was definitely sold down the river by his union in that letter.

I don’t feel bad for him though, because dude has shown an inability to protect his career by not getting repeatedly arrested. If you repeatedly behave in a manner that violates society’s laws, you’re going to get arrested. If you repeatedly get arrested, bad things are going to happen to you.

You don’t want to get suspended, Cedric Benson? Don’t do things to repeatedly get yourself arrested. Don’t blame the NFL or the “union”, look in the MIRROR.

“I know I am a perpetual screw-up, but I should get a pass on this one because it was a full moon, and the papers were not filed, and the dog ate my homework and it wasn’t my drugs, and she asked for it, and everybody else does it, and I am a NFL star and the world revolves around me, and I don’t get no breaks.”