The NFL Lockout: Decertification, Antitrust and Labor Water Cooler Talk
Sports in the Courts Blog is designed to provide crystallized information to non-lawyers (and some lawyers too) in easy to digest posts. Now that the NFL and the Players' Union has handed off their negotiations to the court system, it time to clear up some the legal terms being thrown around with little explaination.
DECERTIFICATION: is the process of dissolving a union by vote of its workers (or players in this case). The true purpose is union decertification with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is to allow the players to file a class action lawsuit againt the owners, in federal court, to drag the NFL into court. The reason the players had to decertify their union before the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired was because if they allowed the CBA to simply terminate, the CBA states that decertification must wait for 6 months after the agreement expires.
The NFL has filed a challenge with the NLRB claiming the decertification is a "sham" by the players for the purposes of filing a lawsuit (and abandoning the negotiations). The owners states that this is an unfair labor practice on the part of the players.
ANTITRUST: the players, including Peyton Manning and Tom Brady have sued the NFL for antitrust violations. This the players claim that the NFL's salary cap is an illegal price-fixing scheme and that the court should strike it down and award the players damages. The NFL, unlike the MLB (protected by law), can be sued by individual players in federal court as long as the union is decertified. In their lawsuit, the players will seek for the court to issue an injunction preventing the owners from locking them out of their workplace.
It is critical to note that the presence of a lawsuit, unlike labor negotiations, gives the players the right to conduct discovery and issue subpoenas. This power is the fuse to another huge battle coming in short order. You can bet that the players' lawyers are about to demand all of the owners audited financial statements. The NFL will fight that demand to the death.
We will be following this major story and continue to provide updates for our readers.
My name is Christopher Fusco. I am the managing partner of Callahan & Fusco, LLC with offices in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.