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The NFL Lockout would end in about 10 minutes if the NFL Players Association would refuse to take the field with scab refs. I think that might be a microcosim into not only Labor but our todays society. GoU and I recently had a conversation about this and crossing picket lines. While he said he never would, I said I wouldnt have a choice it would be deliver the load or get fired.
The NFL Players Association is only concerned about themselves not about other related Union Organizations. I think that we would find the same to be true to a certain degree in other private sector unions. As well in society, in my now almost 23 years of trucking never once has any labor organization attempted to organize a full truck load carrier. While at the same time LTL Union Carriers like Consoldated Freightways were bankrupted by their owners and the freight they used to haul been diverted to non-union subsidiaries. The exact same deal is now happening to Roadway-Yellow Freight. All this is going on as well as the death of other Union Shops while the Union leaders continue to spend 100's of millions of "donations" on the DNC and next to nothing on organizing non-union companies or saving current ones.
The AFL-CIO and Teamsters apparently have switched form an assiocation of oraganized labor to just another political organization. They fiddle, Rome Burns and you Union Guys blame Reagan. Go figure. In another 20 years there will be no more private sector unions, the teamster pension plan won't be able to make good on payments to their retirees and today when it is becoming obvious they need to make their last stand, they do nothing. Unions today are nothing like they were back when my dad was in the URW.

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"my choice is for people like you to be deported -Ike Bana 5/13/18

"within weeks of being rid of the likes of you, rid of every fucking one of you,we would begin to see what kind of country this ought to be" Ike Bana 6/14/18

Sorry, glen, you don't understand. yes, we used to have things where if one group went on strike, ALL groups did in sympathy. However, one of the things that the National Labor Relations Act did was outlaw sympathy strikes. All union contracts have a "no strike/no lockout" agreement. During the life of the agreement, the union is forbidden to strike, and the company is forbidden to lock out the workers. The NFLPA negotiated a contract last year, so they can't strike, even in sympathy, until the contract expires. They have to play.

The NLRA was put into effect for a balance of power: The unions proved how powerful a sympathy strike and a general strike could be. So, in return for legal recognition and forcing corporations to recognize and negotiate with unions, the unions gave up the weapon of general strikes.

However, in my way of thinking, since then, with the Taft-Hartley Act and other attacks upon unions since then, the corporations have taken away most of the legal rights of unions under the act. I am to the point that I think we should repeal the NLRA, and the unions can once again organize and strike across a city or a nation.

And glen, if the Teamsters TRIED to organize at your company, you would be one of the loudest voices against them. Sorry, I'm just not buying your bullshit.

GoU

The NFLPA calls on the NFL to end the lockout:

TO: Owners of NFL Teams

FROM: NFLPA Executive Committee

DATE: September 20, 2012

RE: Your Lockout of the NFL Referees and the Negative Impact on Football



The NFL Players Association Executive Committee is calling on you to end the lockout of our referees. We believe there is substantial evidence that you have failed in your obligation to provide as safe a working environment as possible.

Your decision to lock out officials with more than 1,500 years of collective NFL experience has led to a deterioration of order, safety and integrity. This affirmative decision has not only resulted in poor calls, missed calls and bad game management, but the combination of those deficiencies will only continue to jeopardize player health and safety and the integrity of the game that has taken decades to build.

As we predicted and explained to you weeks ago, the removal of the veteran officials from regular season games left a group of your replacements who have proved to be incapable of keeping pace with the speed of the game. Coaches and players have complained of numerous errors and failures including: erratic and missed calls on egregious holds and hits, increased skirmishes between players and confusion about game rules. Many replacements have lost control of games due to inexperience and unfamiliarity with players and rules.

The headlines are embarrassing: a scab working a game despite having been on the payroll of one of the teams, another who was assigned to referee a team he publicly supported on Facebook, and one who is a professional poker player when you propose even more stringent player rules on gambling.

It is lost on us as to how you allow a Commissioner to cavalierly issue suspensions and fines in the name of player health and safety yet permit the wholesale removal of the officials that you trained and entrusted to maintain that very health and safety. It has been reported that the two sides are apart by approximately $60,000 per team. We note that your Commissioner has fined an individual player as much in the name of “safety.” Your actions are looking more and more like simple greed. As players, we see this game as more than the “product” you reference at times. You cannot simply switch to a group of cheaper officials and fulfill your legal, moral, and duty obligations to us and our fans. You need to end the lockout and bring back the officials immediately.

We are all men who love and respect this game and believe that it represents something beyond just money. For our teammates, our coaches and our fans who deserve better, vote to end this lockout now.

Good for the NFLPA! End the lockout NOW!

GoU

I never crossed or ever will cross a picket line.

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Excellent.

You learn early in This Town not to cross picket lines. Even if you're non-union. You don't cross. They're in for you, you're out for them.

If the refs threw up a line at a game I'd paid a bundle to see, I'd either sell the tix in the parking lot or (more likely) just eat the bundle as my contribution to bringing back the dignity of labor in the US.

I could be wrong, but I think individual members of other unions honoring picket lines is still legal.

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We used to hang our traitors. Now we elect them to lead us.

If the players refuse to cross the picket line and don't take the field, they don't get paid.
Do you REALLY expect them to make that kind of economic sacrifice.......for REFS?
(I would, but I don't make that kind of money every week.)

When the players went on strike years ago, did the Refs honor their picket lines?


Mac

As I said earlier, they can't. When they are under contract, there is a no strike/no lockout clause. They CANNOT strike in sympathy. However, Zowie is also correct - people not forced to work because of a contract can choose not to cross a picket line.

Most Teamster trucking contract have clauses that give them the right not to cross a picket. Given a delivery at a facility with picket lines, it forces a supervisor to come out and drive the load across the line.

GoU

Here's my feeling on the impasse.

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In Wisconsin, we drink BEER, not tea.