SkinsFan28;3960386 said:
I've said it before, but if the owners only wanted give backs, without offering substantial benefits to the players in return, I might be more inclined to the players side. But the players position is stuck so tightly to cash only, that they are ignoring the other - important - offers that the owners have reportedly put out there. Lifetime inclusion in health care? Reduction in mandatory OTA's? 90% cash salary floor? and other items. The owners aren't asking for a blank check, they are asking for a quid pro quo type deal. One that ought to have been done, again IF the players leadership hadn't been looking through a show us the books type mentality. (Remember, the players have never gotten to see the books and we have had 20 yrs+ of labor peace, now its a deal breaker? And the owners and players negotiated the 1B dollar exemption that existed in the 2006 CBA without having to see the books)
I will tell YOU, exactly where my sentiments lie on this:
I have toiled, carrying all the labor required elements of Governmental jobs for over 39 years now. I held a case hardened steel bar while someone pounded just above my hands with a twelve pound sledge, until he tired and I was then given that sledge to remove a stuck but broken torsion bar from a tank. I am missing a right hand thumb, have a platinum plate in my left hand, and required eight stitches in my upper lip. I have a plate where my front teeth should be. I understand the putting my body on the line aspect. That is real. I won't turn a deaf ear as to this issue, specificly.
My departed Father, rode out 186 depth charges upon the submarine, US Plunger, in WWII. He then joined the Union at Celanese leaving school and aspirations to become an Engineer by trade, as my older brother was born.
He was with that Union when they chose to Strike to win an 'early' Labor right to it's very existence in South Texas. During a physical confrontation by the Texas Rangers, attempting to break up the 'newly' sanctioned right to Strike guarantee, he punched a Texas Ranger in that melee and went into hiding for six weeks. Later, he was one of only about HALF of Union members that were brought back onto the job from that point.
While working in that chemical production environment, and just the start of OSHA focus just being formulated as to direction, he only had a quadruple heart operation; twelve inches of colon removed for cancer; and then contracted prostrate cancer as well.
Well, at this point, I had been in the service, myself, for a period of 23 years and been through both Viet Nam and Desert Storm. I had first become a card carrying Union member in Dallas, and it cost me $156 to get my first hour on a freight dock as a call-in casual. This was prior to my leaving Law School in Los Angeles, and enlisting in the Army as an enlisted, not Commissioned Officer.
I explain this because it explains transitions of a person that is a general rank and file member of a non-NFL Union member.
After my active duty time, I passed my waiver status and received a position as a regular following only a three and a half month period as a non-career statused employee. I then started paying my dues once again.
Here, the picture of a Union member overlaps between that of my Dad, and my own.
At the end of my Father's days, he went through a series of Code Blue tragedies, that usually occurred on a Sunday. I then had to be bedside through the following day in trying to pull him through those.
I was issued a Letter of Warning for missing those days, despite Congressionally legislated protections for just such situations. Postal management merely sat on those filings and ignored them, when Stewards attempted redress through the installed steps of mediation and negotiations.
Labor Representative would not even hear this generalized complaint, until all remedies had been extinguised. There were additional Steps following the initial filings, but that required refilings as to progressive steps, and in the face of a continual change in both Union elected officials and Stewards representing upon issue.
Prior to my Father's departure, my Mother went into a coma, and remained in that state for about two and a half months. I was frequently at my Mother's bed side. The attending physician, consulted my Father and my wife and myself, recommending that we take her off of life support measures. I sternly objected, and shortly afterwards, she recovered and has been with us for the past ten years.
Here again, I was issued a Letter of Warning for missing work using unscheduled leave selections. Again, a flagrant abuse of established labor law and rights.
Why do I bother to provide this personal insight on process and base level realities? First, allow me to state that during 39+ years as a Governmental Employee, I have not received a single successful accusation that resulted in a punitive mark upon my record at any point. But the struggles of a rank and file card carrier in the Union, is not the 'magic carpet ride' that the players are experiencing in comparison to the same guaranteed aspects that are being taken to the court today.
I don't begrudge their rights to take it to court and even fight for every last dollar that they conceivably be awared and benefit from fallout and residual fruits as well.
But excuse me, if I don't fully applaud the into a Union and out of a Union shenanigans that they are jumping through hoops for now. The direct comparison of need by base level Unions is being given a raw deal by the same sets of court and legislated protections for members.
For plain and simply, some of the proclaimed sufferings and deprivations, are mostly upon a sterile environment of interpretations, while wharehouses of personal possessions are still being accumulated with even a ground zero approach to benefits that project into the future.
Excuse me also, if I remain unimpressed with a former Trial Lawyer uses legal terminology and unlimited attempts to define previously stated words, into privilege and legitimation to extend the numbers of those wharehouses as well.
