ClutchPoints
While the NFLPA has dealt with gambling concerns and a recent player mugging in Dublin, the group faces a new challenge. Led by Jets owner Woody Johnson, the NFL filed a grievance against the NFLPA about report cards.
The NFL asked the union to stop its annual team report cards. The league said the exercise violates the Collective Bargaining Agreement by “airing public criticism of teams,” according to ESPN.
“The league claims the report cards, which poll players on various aspects of working conditions, violate a CBA clause that says NFL owners and the union must “use reasonable efforts to curtail public comments by club personnel or players which express criticism of any club, its coach, or its operation and policy,” according to an August letter from the league’s management council to NFLPA general counsel Tom DePaso, obtained by ESPN,” Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. co-wrote.
The union stated it would be “moving ahead with this year’s survey,” Wickersham and Van Natta wrote.
“We have responded to the grievance with our intention to fight against this action and continue what’s clearly become an effective tool for comparing workplace standards across the league and equipping you to make informed career decisions,” the NFLPA wrote in its email to players via ESPN.
One reason the league doesn’t like the report cards is a lack of specificity.
“Ownership sources told ESPN that they value the report cards but feel that because the union only issues general grades and not specific feedback, they serve as an instrument to mock teams without telling them which areas need improvement,” Wickersham and Van Natta wrote.
“It could make you better,” a team executive told ESPN, “but they don’t share how. They just take snippets to embarrass people without sharing the data.”
Johnson took issue with the way the NFLPA collected information. It makes sense that Johnson would be upset. His team received a grade of “F,” according to ESPN.
“It’s supposed to be a process [where] we have representatives,” Johnson said earlier this year. “And they have representatives, so we know that it’s an honest survey. And that was violated, in my opinion. I’m going to leave it at that. But I think there are a lot of owners that looked at that survey and said this is not fair.”
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