The NFL Players Association has responded to the accusation that the Collective Bargaining Agreement was altered between the version on which the players voted and the final draft. And the NFLPA has rejected the claim that the CBA was improperly revised.
According to a document provided to all players, a copy of which PFT has obtained, the union calls the claims made by lawyers from the firm of Geragos & Geragos “completely false.”
The NFLPA characterizes the changes made to Article 60, Section 4 of the CBA as the repair to a “cross reference” between the CBA and a disability plain, and that the revisions “reflects no substantive difference whatsoever from what players were told about the proposed CBA and what the players voted to approve.”
The adjustment came via a so-called “side letter” that was employed to make the final document accurately reflect the terms of the deal.
“It is correct that the final version of the 456-page CBA includes an additional subparagraph with a cross-reference to a section of the Disability Plan that the parties had inadvertently omitted in an earlier version,” the union explains to its members. “The final CBA corrected the omission, as the bargaining parties were required to do based on their agreement that ‘if any typographical errors or incorrect cross-references are found in the 2020-2030 Agreement, the parties will act in good faith to correct them’ (just as the parties had similarly agreed when finalizing the 2011 CBA). . . . This correction did not, however, change what had been agreed to with the NFL, what information had been provided to players, or what players had voted upon.”
The union has informed the players that its position will be communicated to the lawyers, who were retained by free-agent safety Eric Reid to address the issue. The lawyers had asked for the CBA to be invalidated, for a new CBA vote to be taken, and for an independent investigation into the matter to be conducted.