Tuesday, September 01, 2009

NFLPA Investigation Gettin' Wacky

Via Jason Cole at Yahoo:

As reported by SportsBusiness Daily on Tuesday, the United States Department of Labor has been investigating the NFLPA and whether meetings between the union’s player leaders and league officials violated labor law. NFLPA director of human resources Mary Moran alleged in her lawsuit that [new NFLPA President DeMaurice] Smith attempted to have the investigation quashed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Folks, this is a troubling labor issue--essentially, a very high figure in a very powerful union is alleging that officials higher than her were meeting with Management without informing the people they are supposed to be representing. Imagine the head of the AFL-CIO being accused of sneaking off for martinis with the CEO of Chrysler without telling the rank and file (that shouldn't be too hard to imagine, actually).

This could be a good faith effort to avoid the looming labor issues of the next few years, but it stinks of collusion--the Union, no matter what the industry is supposed to protect the workers. Heads of unions shouldn't be working in secret, and especially secretly from the rest of the leadership. It stinks, is what I'm telling you. Apparently, most of Ms. Moran's accusations revolve around Troy Vincent, who lost out for the leadership role of the NFLPA, which begs the question--why is the current union leadership trying to fire her for portraying Vincent in a negative light?

This is going to get interesting.

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