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9 Labor Conflict
- University of Illinois Press
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9 Labor Conflict It may seem ironic that the professional sport that had by some measures the poorest working conditions of them all was, in the end, perhaps the most difficult in which to organize a union. Some have attributed this to the nature of the game, in which nameless-faceless components could be easily replaced; others point to the solidarity and tenacity of the early ownership generation . That solidarity has been attributed to the owners’ status as outsiders in American life: Catholics, Jews, and immigrants. The solidarity might also have been the result of several decades of struggle for survival, during which mutual assistance had been critical. The struggle between management and labor was long and divisive, preceding and postdating Rozelle’s reign as commissioner. Many owners who joined the league in the 1950s and 1960s were businessmen who had succeeded in a union-free environment, and came into the league hostile to unions. Some also brought union-busting experience with them. The authoritarian world of football, where coaches demand total submission of the individual to authority and to the team, within an atmosphere of paternalism at times bordering on abuse, was a world in which unions seemingly made no sense. The logic was simple: Coach knows best, coach hates unions, therefore unions must be bad. Organizing players in this world was very difficult and further complicated by the rapid personnel turnover. In those days before instant communications, players were scattered across the country, and that added to the difficultly. Prelude Beginning in the midfifties players faced a new reality of lower salaries in the midst of increasing prosperity for the league. The merger of the NFL and Crepeau_text.indd 135 7/1/14 11:29 AM T h e R o z e ll e Era 136 All-American Football Conference reduced the number of professional teams from eighteen to twelve, and the supply of players on the market drove salaries down. The reserve clause further stripped the players of any leverage on salaries. Recruitment by Canadian Football League teams did not offset the decline. In 1954 Otto Graham, the star quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, had his salary cut by one-third. By 1959 players’ real wages were less than in 1949 while, for example, Green Bay Packer revenue was up 140 percent. In 1956 player salaries consumed 32 percent of revenue. Over the next fifteen years the players’ share dropped to 20 percent. In that same time frame the owners’ share rose from 9.4 percent to 50 percent of revenue. Another player concern was the long, nine-week training camp, during which players received only room and board. The four to six exhibition games when players were not paid their regular salaries could net the owners as much as $100,000.1 It is not surprising, then, that there was a move to organize the players. It began in Cleveland, where Paul Brown’s iron-fisted control of the players’ lives, and tight-fisted control of salaries, led to dissatisfaction. In 1954 players Abe Gibron and Dante Lavelli contacted Creighton Miller, who had been on the Cleveland Browns staff in 1946. As a result, in November 1956 the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) was formed. At the first meeting, the players called for recognition of the group, a minimum salary of $5,000 per year, a uniform per diem for players, a rule requiring teams to pay for players’ equipment, a provision for the continued salary payment for injured players, training camp pay, pay during the period between the end of camp and the opening of the season, and shorter training camps. The owners invited NFLPA representatives to attend league meetings in January 1957. Then, as if to make a point, neither the commissioner nor any owner sat down with them at the league meetings.2 The owners offered a few crumbs to the players, such as an opportunity for them to draw a fifty-dollar advance on their salaries for each exhibition game; if a player did not make the roster , he would not have to pay back the money. The arrogance of power was a heady thing. In 1949 Bill Radovich, a Detroit lineman, filed an antitrust suit against the NFL. Three years prior, Radovich jumped from the Lions to the Los Angeles Dons of the AAFC, and he played for the Dons for two seasons. In 1948 he was offered a minor league contract as player-coach with the San Francisco...