Re: [nas] U.S. Soccer Postpones Start of Training Camp

--- GLecko <glecko@gmail.com> wrote:

> What is this football/baseball/hockey?  Holy cr*p
> ... am I wrong in
> thinking this is wrong?!?

No, you are not wrong, it is wrong.

**mounting soap box**

What's going on is lack of foresight on the part of
both parties.  They're trying to figure out, based on
industrial age antagonistic labor relations thinking
that is absolutely fraught with holes and fallacies,
which side has the bigger schwinging youknowwhat.

The fed needs to seriously take a look at the revenue
they make from the labor of their player employees and
determine what is available as a pool to split amongst
them from any opportunity.  They certainly make more
now than they used to as an organization and as with
any compensatory labor exchange relationship they (and
the players) need to make sure the equations balance
out reasonably and fairly on a player by player basis.
 The problem is this is all subjective and the USSF
appears being hard line confrontational about it.

The players need to kick a certain pair of balls and
inform their side's representative not to be
confrontational either.  In the modern era the job of
a union rep is (or should be) to find out the facts
that are available on which to base a position for
negotiation.  Somehow with the distance apart the
sides are it doesn't sound like that's happened to me.
 The fact is if information is not publicly available
nor voluntarily exposed by USSF then the players union
has no facts to base a stance on to be asking for
squat, let alone a triple digit increase in pay.

Now, if that all sounds a bit harsh, this is the real
world and the real world is not run by "fair" and
"equitable".  It is run by the rich who will do
whatever is necessary to preserve their status which
is nothing more than instinctively based behaviour
(remember we are territorial and possessive creatures
by nature).  At this point the negotiations need to
basically be handed to a binding arbitration process
to just get something done.  Neither side will be
happy because they've taken such hard line stances. 
But that's what they should do imho.  

And before the next cycle they all need to join the
modern world and get out of the american sports
complex way of looking at things antagonistically from
opposite sides of a table.  They're all feeding from
the same small bag and until the bag of food gets
bigger nobody is entitled to massive increases in pay.
 I mean with the numbers they're throwing about in
terms of percentage raise (20 up to 108 depending on
which side you listen to) why should any of us give a
crap about their pay levels?  When is the last time
*YOU* got a pay raise of more than 2-5%?  Better yet,
when is the last time you got a raise at all?  Right. 
Both sides are essentially full of it.  *My* last
raise of more than 2-5% was 6.5 years ago (and none
since then) and the next one isn't likely to be
anything close to 20%, let alone more than that.  The
economy won't support it.  And you know what?  I
rather suspect the popularity, growth, and current
status of the sport overall on a national level in the
US won't support it yet either.  They're in a cycle in
which the only thing that matters to the "economy" of
soccer is performance.  There is still a LOT of work
to do to truly insert the sport into US consciousness
at the top level of sports-entertainment where dream
salaries can be supported.  My own opinion is they
should play for travel, expenses, a graduated stipend
(based on number of appearances), and a bonus for
winning any given match.  Winning, not drawing.

**descends from soap box**

This is a sore point for me partly because discussions
are just starting on this very topic at the startup I
work for and there are some here who're setting up for
a potentially very confrontational process which is
completely unnecessary.





=====
-russ
http://home.comcast.net/~rcampb61
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Do you want to live forever?  We can't, but we can certainly live
better.  Ask me about Life Plus.


                
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. 
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

---
See all of today's Soccer News Links at:  http://www.sams-army.com/
NAS is hosted by America Kicks (http://www.americakicks.com)
To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nas.americakicks.com
To post, send an email to nas@americakicks.com