NFL Owners Set To Vote On New Labor Deal
Added on Jul 21, 2011 by Jack Thurman in
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The NFL labor impasse continues to wind its way to a resolution. After the players decided to defer a vote on Wednesday to give them more time to study the proposal the owners are going to vote on the new collective bargaining agreement on Thursday. More specifically,the owners will vote on a global settlement deal that includes the new CBA as well as settlement of the various legal proceedings that have been filed during the lockout. Assuming that it is approved as expect it will officially give Roger Goodell authority to sign an agreement with the NFL Players Association once it gets recertified as a bargaining agent.
The players representatives have scheduled a conference call this evening with the anticipation of having a deal approved by the owners. During this call the items of business will include substantative items–whether to accept the new deal–as well as logistical–how to facilitate the voting process of some 1,900 NFL players. NFL Players Association Executive Director Maurice Smith had little to say on Wednesday:
“We continue to talk. There are some issues that are outstanding that are left to resolve.”
He did say that the decision to recertify the union wouldn’t be taken lightly:
“The decision to decertify as a union was a significant one. Every individual person has to make a decision on whether they want to become part of a union. The individual decisions are something that our players take extremely serious.”
Sources suggest that none of the individual players will receive a ‘financial or tactical’ gain from the settlement itself, which means that the $10 million ‘settlement’ that San Diego Chargers’ wide receiver Vincent Jackson was trying to extort for himself won’t be happening. Another party to the lawsuit was New England’s guard Logan Mankins–his agent Frank Bauer said that media characterizations that his client was making unreasonable demands was inaccurate but then undermined that assertion with his suggestion that Mankins was hung out to dry by the union:
“I think it’s realy unfair what has happened to Logan Mankins in media characterizations that he is making monetary demands or holding up a settlement.”
“Logan Mankins is a young man who was encouraged and solicited into a lawsuit to help the union spearhead a new agreement. Logan’s main concern for entering into as a plaintiff was to see if he can become free and help other players have less restrictions. For people to say he has made monetary demands, he hasn’t made any such demand. We don’t know terms. We haven’t talked to (NFLPA attorney) Jeff Kessler. There has been no communication, but it’s irresponsible to report Logan has made monetary demands.”
“Are we disappointed there has been no communication? Hugely. He trusted the union and Kessler to fight for Logan Mankins and the other players.”
While this is bad news for players like Mankins and Jackson who won’t enjoy a financial windfall from the settlement this is all good news for NFL plays who can look forward to football resuming very soon.
