NFL Exec: We Are Committed to Collective Bargaining
This afternoon, the National Football League Players Association and managers extended the contract deadline for another seven days while negotiations continue.
After the extension was announced, Jeff Pash, executive vice president of labor for the National Football League and the chief negotiator for a $9 billion business, said he backed the collective bargaining process.
…we are committed to collective bargaining. All over this country, collective bargaining is being challenged. We’re committed to it. We believe it can work. It has worked. We believe it will work across the country is being challenged and he supports the collective bargaining process.
Someone get Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on the phone. Oh, the Koch brothers already did….
Last Super Bowl? Block the Lockout
If you are a football fan, savor Sunday’s Super Bowl, because when the Packers and Steelers leave the field that may be the last game in a long time. The National Football League (NFL) owners say they will lock out the players next season unless they agree to outrageous givebacks.
Even if you are not a football fan, you should be concerned because a lockout won’t only impact football players and fans. Stadium employees will be jobless. Sports bars, police officers who provide stadium security, restaurants, hotels and others who work supporting the game also will be hurt. In fact, 4.8 million workers will feel the impact, and $4.5 billion in revenue will disappear from 32 cities around the nation.
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) recently tried to get a clear message out to fans in a TV commercial that simply says to the owners, “Don’t lock us out. Let us play.” But CBS is refusing to air the ad. Click here to watch the ad.
You can help the players get their message out by signing our “Block the Lockout” Petition. Click here to sign the petition. You also can sign the Twitter petition here or by tweeting: petition @NFL: I demand a #SuperBowl in 2012! DO NOT lock out football players next season, #LetThemPlay. http://act.ly/31w
$3 Million for Super Bowl Ad. $3 for Workers Who Paid For It
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| Liberian rubber workers walk for miles with heavy metal buckets of rubber on their backs. |
Nearly 100 million football fans across the country will be tuning in to watch Bruce Springsteen belt out his trademark songs celebrating America’s workers during halftime at the Super Bowl this evening. They also will see two new 30-second commercials—estimated to cost at least $3 million each—from Bridgestone Firestone, the world’s largest tire company and the halftime sponsor.
But none of the viewers will see Austin Natee and his fellow workers. Natee is president of the union that represents the thousands of Liberian rubber workers who earn $3 on a good day, but whose hard labor creates the profits that Bridgestone Firestone uses to pay for the halftime spectacular.
When he was in Washington, D.C., last year to accept the 2007 Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award on behalf of the rubber workers, Natee explained how Bridgestone Firestone continually exploits workers and pollutes the environment. Saying the workers live in modern-day slavery, he explained that rubber tappers work 14 hours a day and must tap 750 rubber trees and accumulate 150 pounds of latex daily—all for little more than $3 a day and a monthly 100-pound bag of subsidized rice if quotas are met.
