Gene Upshaw threatens strike

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2008/02/01/2008-02-01_gene_upshaw_threatens_strike.html

Gene Upshaw threatens strike
By GARY MYERS
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, February 1st 2008

PHOENIX - The rhetoric has started in the NFL's latest labor battle, with players union boss Gene Upshaw threatening a strike as an option to combat the owners, who he expects will opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in November.

As part of the last-minute deal agreed to in March 2006, either side has the right to terminate the deal in November. The CBA gives the players 60% of the revenue. Already, Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Broncos owner Patrick Bowlen have suggested the deal needs to be renegotiated. Upshaw listed a shutdown of the $8 billion-a-year industry as a union alternative.

"It's very clear to us from what we see in the tea leaves the owners will terminate the deal in November," Upshaw said Thursday. "I have prepared the players for the worst."

If the owners terminate the CBA, in which they felt they gave way too much money to the players, then Upshaw said there are four alternatives: a strike, lockout, union decertification (a tactic that would allow the union to sue under antitrust law, which the NFLPA used to get free agency) or a contract extension. A termination of the deal would make 2009 the final year with a salary cap and 2010 an uncapped year. The contract expires in 2011. The union went out on strike for 57 days in 1982 and 24 days in 1987.

"Where all of this ends up, I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you," Upshaw said. "Whatever we agree to will be fair to the players. We will not agree to a rollback. They are not hockey players and they are not hockey owners. We're getting 60% of the revenue. When all is said and done, we're not giving any of it back. I don't want the owners to believe there is a Santa Claus. There is not one."

Still, he said, "At the end of the day, there will be a deal. I think they have to learn to survive on their 40%."

Two years ago, the owners ratified the new CBA at a meeting in Dallas. After they were unable to negotiate a new deal with Upshaw, he presented them with a take-it-or-leave-it offer that the owners complained at the time was one-sided. But if they rejected it, the salary cap would have been gone. Upshaw reiterated yesterday if the NFL gets to an uncapped year, the union will never agree to a salary cap again.

Upshaw reiterated the union's position that it will not accept blood testing for human growth hormone, and that until a urine test is developed, there is nothing to talk about.