The Sweeper: Lockout Looms for MLS? Yes, No, Maybe So.
Big Story
We’ve rather evaded the ongoing labour talks between MLS and the players’ union, mainly because we don’t have any insider info or original insight to offer on the dispute. But we’re just days away from a lockout, so we are at least keeping a close eye on the proceedings. Two different news reports today paint different pictures of how close we are to the first work disruption in MLS history.
At Soccer America, Ridge Mahoney cautiously says that the latest news “might be interpreted as encouraging.” Mahoney tells us the two sides are at least sitting at the table together for lengthy periods of time.
Representatives of the two sides met for eight hours yesterday at league headquarters, and discussions are scheduled to resume Wednesday.
On hand for MLS were Commissioner Don Garber, President Mark Abbott, Executive Vice President Todd Durbin, and others, including members of the league’s legal firm, Proskauer & Rose. Jon Newman, General Counsel to the MLSPU, was among those on the players’ side of the table.
Progress, or lack of same, has been hard to track, yet eight hours is a long time for two opposing sides, regardless of the issues, to tolerate each other.
In the San Diego Tribune, Mark Zeigler is rather less optimistic:
Neither side is talking much, respecting to a mutual media gag order, but snippets of sentiment have leaked out over the past few months as talks have grown more contentious. It’s not looking good. Several players and agents privately say they consider a Feb. 1 lockout inevitable.
On the table are issues such as free agency, the salary cap, roster size, minimum pay, guaranteed contracts, moving expenses, per diem, 401(k)s. The core issue, though, might be something far more fundamental: the true financial viability of the league.
So leave it to Freddie Ljungberg to proclaim on his blog yesterday that “Based on the latest news I’ve heard from both sides, there wont be a lock out or strike on Feb 1.” True or not, perhaps more interesting were his comments about just how surprising all this was to Freddie:
Its been a difficult time. The potential strike that is happening in US soccer has made every player worry about their career’s and where they will be playing next season…. It’s been a big surprise how long the negotiations have been going on and no agreement has been reached.
All that the players are asking for is FIFA RIGHTS!! Every football player in the world that I know of plays under those rules, big or small leagues. So when I thought an agreement would be signed in a second…How wrong was I…..
How wrong indeed, Freddie.
Worldwide News
- On Portland’s stadium redevelopment for MLS, Fake Sigi points to a Field of Schemes piece on some less than transparent aspects of the council’s funding for it, concluding “What’s clear is that there’s plenty of opposition to getting this deal done, and while by all accounts the stadium deal will get pushed through, it’s not at all obvious the community is happy with the arrangement. Nothing against Portland and their fans, but MLS expansion in the Pacific Northwest beyond Seattle hasn’t been a shining example of public relations.”
- European Football Weekends looks at what they call Britain’s #1 ultras group, Celtic’s Green Brigade. One of their leaders describes their non-existent relations with the club: “We don’t have any relationship with Celtic, or at least not a positive one. They are happy to use the chants we start over the tannoy and our tifo pictures on their adverts for ticketing but beyond that there is no relationship to speak of, and we regularly have problems with them in terms of getting access with materials, with aggro from club stewards and officials etc. Recently our members taking the group banner into matches have been pointed out by Celtic stewards to the police who have demanded details and searches, using spurious legislation against us.”
- One third of World Cup tickets remain unsold; not a surprise, perhaps, but a real shame.
The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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I don’t see any reason for the owners to lock the players out. If the players aren’t going to strike, and they said they aren’t, then that means they are going to continue to work under the old agreement until the new one is signed. The owners aren’t fighting to get anything back from the players so why would they lock them out? That’s a serious question by the way.
Exactly, Merwin.
Too many assume that as of 12:01 AM Monday, there’s a work stoppage. That’s not how these things work, necessarily.
There’s been no public declaration from management that, barring a new CBA, they will lock labor out as of 2/1/10 (or 1/2/10 for you, Tom). There’s been no public declaration that, barring a new CBA, the players will strike as of 2/1/10. Jimmy Conrad’s assertion that “we’ve been threatened with a lockout” may or may not be true (we’re not at the table, and, presumably, he has been at least once), but I’m less inclined to believe things Jimmy Conrad says these days than I used to.
As I understand it, if satisfactory progress is being made, it’s absolutely not uncommon for labor and management to continue business as usual in good faith and continuing negotiations. Whether it’s pro athletes vs. team owners or auto workers vs. auto companies (not a great analogy, as auto workers have auto companies over a barrel and have for a long time).
This “doomsday clock” that too many seem to think we’re on is not really that at all. A work stoppage is supposed to be what one side resorts to when there’s an impasse. And, as you mention, management, in this case, seems perfectly fine with the status quo.
I know you’re not going nearly as far as many others are, Tom, but the seemingly throwaway line “we’re just days away from a lockout,” as if that’s just the way it is, is facile and hyperbolic.
You’re right, KT. Thanks for the more thoughtful commentary than my own.
I’m not a labor lawyer, but that’s how I understand it. I have a labor lawyer friend and am efforting his take.
It certainly makes logical sense, and puts Freddie’s comments in a different light too regarding his understanding that there will be no stoppage on Feb. 1st.
…which some took to mean “They have a deal and Freddie knows it! They told Freddie there’s a deal! And he knows where Hoffa’s buried AND when they’re going to bring the Cosmos back!”
People overreact.
My buddy the labor lawyer says, and I paraphrase: work stoppages happen only when there’s an impasse (as I said) when one side or the other says “That’s it, I’m not giving in on this.” Strikes and lockouts are “economic weapons” in this type of game, but they’re (seemingly in this case) weapons of Mutually Assured Destruction sometimes.
There is no legal requirement that one side or the other use that weapon after the expiration of a CBA, and many times, parties continue to work past the expiration. Most of the expired terms of the CBA apparently survive its expiration (meaning the league goes on doing business as it has, in this case). Obviously, players still have contracts, but they can work under the terms of an expired CBA while bargaining is still going on.
This particular CBA does contain a no strike/no lockout clause, which is fairly standard, which apparently does NOT survive the expiration of the CBA (makes sense). That’s probably where some of the hysteria comes from – MLS players are bound by the terms of the agreement NOT to strike (and management not to lock them out) until Monday. But just because the no strike/no lockout clause doesn’t extend past midnight Monday doesn’t mean a strike or a lockout automatically kicks in.
Could things get contentious today or tomorrow? Could somebody get really pissed off and blow the whole deal? Sure. Happens a lot. But there have not been – to my knowledge, anyway – any actual public statements that the players will get locked out on Monday or that the players will strike on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.
We have Conrad saying they’ve been threatened with a lockout. We have Ljungberg saying there won’t be a work stoppage. The classic He-Said-Swede-Said if I ever saw one.
As for the two piece referenced, I think Mahoney was even-handed and gave a more accurate picture of where things stands right now. Zeigler leans on information old enough that it’s essentially irrelevant when talking about a fluid negotiation process.
The Fake Sigi post points to the one vehemently anti-Portland-stadium blog to make a point the process “wasn’t transparent” – but we’ve known for a long time how the city was planning to fund the PGE Park renovation. It’s nothing new at all. The surprises were more along the lines of the LEED Silver certification and the fact the Timbers are locked into being in PGE Park for at least 25 years.
As I just explained in the comments to my blog, there have been plenty of other opposition pieces, not just the one I cited initially. Furthermore, I’d contend that the Portland council is being very transparent about a really sketchy bond scheme.
-FS
In regard to the Portland stuff, I’m not an expert in stadium finance and it seems fair for Fake Sigi to point out the potentially sketchy aspects of the stadium deal. But as a Portlander I’m not sure about the conclusion that the core issue is a failure in “public relations.” It seems to me that the contentiousness around the deal is probably an inevitable result of trying to have an MLS facility in a downtown stadium that has a long history in a city where there are lots of people paying close attention to politics (which also means lots of frustrating self-righteousness on both sides–something not unfamiliar to either soccer blogs or, maybe, democracy). If Portland had gone the more traditional MLS route of building a stadium/shopping mall/county fair/whatever complex on vacant land in deep suburbs there would indeed likely be less contentiousness. But that would be a lot less interesting. As a Portlander I’m glad people are paying attention. I think the anti-stadium crowd has agitated enough to get some valuable concessions from the Paulsons (such as their personal guarantee on any cost-overruns). And the pro-stadium crowd has been vocal enough to make it likely that the city will get a pretty cool soccer set-up that could well be part of a healthy urban core. Again–I don’t want to defend all aspects of the deal, and don’t think it’s been done perfectly. And maybe I’m blinded by my desire to have the Timbers in the MLS. But it strikes me that the contention around this could be more about healthy (though occasionally cloying and contentious) engagement rather than (just) bad “public relations.”
I don’t even live in Portland, but I feel Andrew has his finger on the whyfores on that. Any public funding component to almost any soccer stadium in this country, even Soccer City USA, is going to bring on a fistfight.