When the NFL had the NFLPA backed against a lockout in March, the NFLPA pulled the plug on its union status, decertifying as a bargaining unit and then suing the NFL for a wide variety of antitrust violations that arise when 32 different businesses try to enforce rules against a common workforce. (Man, I don’t miss writing about this stuff at all.)
On Thursday, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith addressed NBA players, who currently are locked out and who are contemplating decertification. Per USA Today, Smith told the NBA players that shutting down the union may not be the way to go.
Smith’s visit with the players came at a time when agents reportedly are pushing for the NBAPA to adopt the same strategy, and the NBA players association is resisting.
“DeMaurice gave the players some background on what it was like with his players going through the lockout,” NBA players association executive director Billy Hunter said. “The one point he made is, it’s not the silver bullet, that the real key to it all is solidarity.”
And by solidarity, Hunter presumably means, “Do what the union wants you to do.”
The reality is that it’s too late to unleash the decertification option, if the goal is to get a good deal in place before the NBA regular season begins. It takes time for the hearings and appeals and other exercises in leverage that helped the NFL players maximize the pressure on the owners and ultimately get a deal done before players missed game checks.
Of course, Smith can’t tell the NBA players that the NFLPA decertified merely to exert leverage and not because the NFL’s players genuinely decided not to be a union anymore. If he did, those comments would be used against the NFLPA if/when the NFLPA tries to do the same thing in 2021. The best Smith can do for the NBA players at this point is to get them to unite behind the strategy that has been selected, and that strategy at this point does not and, as a practical matter cannot, entail decertification.
Still, Smith’s current constituents have to be wondering why Smith is telling the NBA’s players that the strategy employed by the NFLPA isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
