We just can't seem to collectively agree about collective bargaining these days.
With Wisconsin's state legislative standoff still unresolved, representatives from the National Football League and its players union reconvened this morning to continue negotiating over the very issue that has proved so contentious of late.
The current NFL collective bargaining agreement is set to expire at 11:59 tonight, and while there are optimistic indications that the feuding sides will at least temporarily prevent a lockout by extending the deadline, the battleground remains, more or less, the same.
The players insist that the current deal is a satisfactory compromise, while the owners are vying to take a greater chunk off the top of the league's roughly $9 billion in annual profits.
Chicago Now's Adam Oestmann explains:
The profit-pie in the NFL is approximately nine billion dollars annually. Currently, the owners are allowed to take one billion dollars off the top. That one billion is used to cover miscellaneous operating expenses. From there, the players get 59.6% of the remaining pie. That money comes in the form of a salary cap.
What the owners are essentially proposing is that the players get the same percentage of a smaller pie. The owners are claiming inflation and increased utilities costs as the reason behind their pay raise. Instead of taking one billion off the top, they would take 2.4 billion. This increased cut to the owners leaves the players with an approximate 18% decrease in pay.
The scenario playing out in America's Dairyland is slightly different than the aptly labeled millionaires vs. billionaires situation in the NFL.
For weeks now, Wisconsin Democrats have been battling Republican state senators and Gov. Scott Walker to protect public-sector employees from losing their right to assemble unions and negotiate collective bargaining agreements.
Stuck in the middle of both disputes sit the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, some of whose players not only threw their weight behind Wisconsin protesters supporting the collective bargaining cause, but are now fighting their own battle with NFL owners over the very same issue.
Post je objavljen 12.03.2011. u 04:13 sati.