Goodenow's plan

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Pepper

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Weary said:
If that's the case, then NHL is bargaining in bad faith right now by not offering the $42.5M cap any longer. Taking something off the table is not an act of bad faith. Since you said I should "read up," please feel free to provide links to reading material that contradicts that.

NHL has a very legit reason for taking the 42.5M offer off the table, a full year without hockey will hurt their revenues so they can't afford the same salary cap as during the winter.

NHLPA has absolutely no valid excuses for going backwards.
 

djhn579

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Weary said:
I have done that. I just felt no need to take it out on somebody else when it was misinterpreted.


If that's the case, then NHL is bargaining in bad faith right now by not offering the $42.5M cap any longer. Taking something off the table is not an act of bad faith. Since you said I should "read up," please feel free to provide links to reading material that contradicts that.


Look it up. It's not bad faith if you can prove your finances are adversly affected by the continueing lockout...

Here... since it's so hard for you to do...


Regressive bargaining, however, is not unlawful in itself; rather, it is unlawful if it is for the purpose of frustrating the possibility of agreement.[14] And, as the Respondent rightly observes, an employer who offers less attractive proposals after weathering a strike than it did before the strike will not necessarily be found to have engaged in surface bargaining. If economic conditions have changed, or the employer finds itself in a stronger bargaining position after the strike, an offer of regressive proposals will not necessarily indicate an intention to frustrate the bargaining process.[15] The Respondent contends that it withdrew its earlier agreement to retain the “validity†provision of the expired contract because it was contemplating selling the business and felt that a prospective purchaser should not be obligated to honor the collective-bargaining agreement. It also argues that it withdrew its previous subcontracting proposal because it wanted to be able to subcontract instrument calibration functions in order to save money.

http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/decisions/331/331-23.htm
 

Weary

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kdb209 said:
And once transformed to a single entity MLS style ownership model, the league could implement policies like salary caps, a draft, any type of free agency it wished, etc, without facing any challenge on anti trust grounds - it would just be a single entity making policies for its employees.
The decision in the MLS against summary judgement points out one of the critical differences between this NHL scenario and the MLS one:
IV. THE FORMATION OF MLS
In addition to the claim that the player policies of MLS are an unlawful horizontal restraint of trade, the plaintiffs also claim that the very formation of MLS in the first place violated § 7 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits acquisitions or mergers the effect of which "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly" in any line of commerce or activity affecting commerce, 15 U.S.C. § 18, as well as § 1 of the Sherman Act. The two theories are related.

The Clayton Act Claim

-----------------------------

2. Existing Market
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, the claim is not otherwise viable. There can be no § 7 liability because the formation of MLS did not involve the acquisition or merger of existing business enterprises, but rather the formation of an entirely new entity which itself represented the creation of an entirely new market.
The NHL would not be exempt because they are an existing market. So their attempt to gain antitrust exemption would be prevented by the Clayton Act.
 

Weary

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djhn579 said:
Look it up. It's not bad faith if you can prove your finances are adversly affected by the continueing lockout...

Here... since it's so hard for you to do...


Regressive bargaining, however, is not unlawful in itself; rather, it is unlawful if it is for the purpose of frustrating the possibility of agreement.[14]
I never claimed regressive bargaining by the NHL would be in bad faith. I said both the NHL and the NHLPA could take back features of their previous offers. You were the one claiming that the NHL could bargain regressively, while the NHLPA could not. The case you provided fails to back up your assertion.
 

Weary

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Pepper said:
NHL has a very legit reason for taking the 42.5M offer off the table, a full year without hockey will hurt their revenues so they can't afford the same salary cap as during the winter.

NHLPA has absolutely no valid excuses for going backwards.
The only time the NHLPA has no excuses for going backwards is once a valid CBA is signed. An agreement is being negotiated, not a series of individual terms. Each proposal is considered as a whole, and not in parts.
 

djhn579

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Weary said:
The decision in the MLS against summary judgement points out one of the critical differences between this NHL scenario and the MLS one:
IV. THE FORMATION OF MLS
In addition to the claim that the player policies of MLS are an unlawful horizontal restraint of trade, the plaintiffs also claim that the very formation of MLS in the first place violated § 7 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits acquisitions or mergers the effect of which "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly" in any line of commerce or activity affecting commerce, 15 U.S.C. § 18, as well as § 1 of the Sherman Act. The two theories are related.

The Clayton Act Claim

-----------------------------

2. Existing Market
Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, the claim is not otherwise viable. There can be no § 7 liability because the formation of MLS did not involve the acquisition or merger of existing business enterprises, but rather the formation of an entirely new entity which itself represented the creation of an entirely new market.
The NHL would not be exempt because they are an existing market. So their attempt to gain antitrust exemption would be prevented by the Clayton Act.

The NHL would not have a monopoly. There are many other hockey leagues in the US and the rest of the world. The NHL may have to get rid of any affiliation agreements with the AHL so that the AHL can compete freely against the NHL.

I'm sure if the NHLPA decertifies, the NHL would take it's chances since this will make future CBA negotiations much easier when the players decide to recertify.
 

Weary

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djhn579 said:
The NHL would not have a monopoly. There are many other hockey leagues in the US and the rest of the world. The NHL may have to get rid of any affiliation agreements with the AHL so that the AHL can compete freely against the NHL.
Bettman's supporters have spent months arguing against that the European leagues cannot support NHL level salaries. Now they should be considered evidence against a monopoly? And the AHL, with its $90,000 maximum salary is legitimate competition for the NHL and its $300,000 minimum?
 

GSC2k2*

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Weary said:
The guys on the bottom end would be the biggest beneficiaries. With unlimited spending, there is still a market for their skills. With a salary cap, most will be paid the league minimum.

There would be NO league minimum. Guys would be suiting up for $35-40k per year at the bottom end, and possibly even less. The fourth liners and fifth defencemen are truly interchangeable with 50 other guys toiling in the minors.

Your reasoning does not hold up.
 

Weary

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gscarpenter2002 said:
There would be NO league minimum. Guys would be suiting up for $35-40k per year at the bottom end, and possibly even less. The fourth liners and fifth defencemen are truly interchangeable with 50 other guys toiling in the minors.

Your reasoning does not hold up.
So players are going to accept salaries that are not only lower than than those in Europe, but also lower than those in the AHL? Not likely.
 

Mess

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alecfromtherock said:
The NHL would have the ULTIMATE HAMMER in this lockout if as a result of the union decertifying all current contracts would be void.

Decertification will only be applicable if it can be proven(by the PA Brass and the players agents) that the majority of current NHLers will not be negatively effected($$$) as a result..
All contracts would be void .. but depending on what happens could also open to anti-trust fines that can be awarded as large as 3 times the damage occured to an individual player ..

alecfromtherock said:
Q1: Would decertifying effect the players from re-certifying later on?.
The NHL players would 100% reform a new union again shortly after without doubt and that NEW UNION PA would attempt to negotiate a new CBA with the Owners ..

alecfromtherock said:
Q2: If the NHL gets an impasse declared and impose their own CBA and it is held up in the labour courts, would the owners still be anti-trust exempt?

Red Tape in the courts could hold up the individual players’ anti-trust cases for years, years in which they would not be earning a salary or even playing in the NHL. .
Anti-trust law is very different then labour law .. and handle different responsibilities.

If the NLRB upholds and denies a NHLPA lawsuit to get the IMPASSE CBA voided ..then that action in a way forces the Union hand even more to decertify and take their changes with a different court of law.. If the NLRB rules in favour of the NHLPA and throws out the IMPASSE CBA in place then the NHLPA does not need to decertify and would be holding all the power as the Owners would now have to negotiate a NEW CBA less restrictive then the former imposed IMPASSE CBA..

Red Tape in courts is a bit of a REd Herring ... The players could file claims all they want if they feel they have a case .. It would be in the best interest of the NHL to attempt to employ them and at close to their former salary .. If they do that, the player can drop the anti-trust case at any point.. Also damages awarded would be limited if a NHL team makes him an offer and the palyer does not accept.. Also consider a player like Yashin or Holik .. They could file cases for damages and go home and play in the Euro leagues awaiting their day in court and their awards that would be in the millions ..

alecfromtherock said:
Q3: Union decertifies: can individual players have any say on game changes if they are not represented by the one body?

Lets say owners reduce roster sizes to 20, take away the centre line, reduce goalie equipment, increase the minium fines... how could the decertified players stop the owners from implementing any game changes? .
Game changes like red line and goalie equipment NO .. but things like roster size ,and other items contained in a CBA would be subject to anti-trust law .. Your example of losing 2 jobs per team would definitely affect players and those without jobs would have great damage cases ..

alecfromtherock said:
Q4: Decertified players sign contracts with their teams under confidentially, if the players re-form a union could any of the information be made available to their union?.
That would be subject to the terms of the next CBA and stated and agreed upon within it.

alecfromtherock said:
The Microsoft is not a Monopoly quote shows what the PA is up against in relation to the labour boards.
The fact that the PA will/may not receive any favour in labour court is a reason I think decertification is an actual possibility in fact ..

Here is the Quote taken from a TSN article explaining Decertification

At the other end, the NHL Players' Association could potentially pull some good trump cards of its own - strike or decertification.

Under a strike scenario, the union simply won't accept the new work rules and walk out. They would gamble that fans wouldn't flock back into arenas to watch non-regulars dressed in NHL uniforms.

The other option is for NHLPA members voting to decertify the NHLPA as their representative body. That way, the new framework of the CBA would not be applicable to them. Simply put, you can't have new labour practices applying to members of a union if that union doesn't exist anymore.

This specific process will essentially fragment the union's former membership. Decertified players who think they can make better money under a new CBA could head back to work, while players who take a financial hit from the new CBA could sue the league under anti-trust laws. If 'Hockey Player X' made $9 million US under the old deal, and only $6 million US because of restrictions - whether it be a salary cap, luxury tax, or re-vamped salary arbitration - under a new deal, he could seek damages for as much as three times the difference.

The other impact of decertification is its effect on the NHL as a product. No one knows how many players would return to such a 'new' NHL, and if most rosters are filled with replacement players, would fans be willing to watch a 'lesser quality' of hockey?

With everything taken into consideration, declaring an impasse would only show us more of that massive iceberg in the already frosty relations between the NHL and NHL Players' Association.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature.asp?fid=9941
 
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GSC2k2*

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Weary said:
So players are going to accept salaries that are not only lower than than those in Europe, but also lower than those in the AHL? Not likely.

You think everything else would remain static after the NHL blows up? THe minute the NHL minimum and the entire NHL salary structure disappears, every other league will be affected dramatically. AHL'ers will make nickels and dimes, and European offers will drop like a stone, even though European offers are for far less for the average NHLer already than a lot of people seem to think. The Kovalchuks get good dollars, and would continue to do so after the NHL blew up. There would be a small upper middle class of guys with distinctive talents. Everybody else, with the NHL minimum out of the way, gets peanuts.

It really doesn't matter anyway. There isn't anyone on this planet suggesting that decertification is a valid option. Messenger is on his own planet, noodling away. As a lawyer myself, I continue to shake my head every day that I visit this place when I read what passes for legal analysis on this board. It takes a little more than reading a few internet-posted articles and a few trips to the NLRB website, folks.
 

mr gib

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gscarpenter2002 said:
You think everything else would remain static after the NHL blows up? THe minute the NHL minimum and the entire NHL salary structure disappears, every other league will be affected dramatically. AHL'ers will make nickels and dimes, and European offers will drop like a stone, even though European offers are for far less for the average NHLer already than a lot of people seem to think. The Kovalchuks get good dollars, and would continue to do so after the NHL blew up. There would be a small upper middle class of guys with distinctive talents. Everybody else, with the NHL minimum out of the way, gets peanuts.

It really doesn't matter anyway. There isn't anyone on this planet suggesting that decertification is a valid option. Messenger is on his own planet, noodling away. As a lawyer myself, I continue to shake my head every day that I visit this place when I read what passes for legal analysis on this board. It takes a little more than reading a few internet-posted articles and a few trips to the NLRB website, folks.
"...The Kovalchuks get good dollars, and would continue to do so after the NHL blew up. There would be a small upper middle class of guys with distinctive talents..."

they'll be bidding war's for the best talent - the new nhl could be inferior - will the owner's take the risk?
 

Mess

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kdb209 said:
There are a couple of fundamental differences between the league transforming itself into a single ownership entity league and selling it to an outside part like Bain. Unlike the Bain scenerio, the owners would not be forced to sell and lose control/ownership - they would just be converting the value of their franchise into some percentage ownership of the new league entity (a percentage based on some assessment of current relative franchise values), a much smaller hit to the ego. Secondly, there was no pressing need to accept the Bain offer. The league making the change itself would be in a direct response to the changes brought about by decertification - immunity from anti trust challenges for team/league operations.

This league transformation would be completely different than the Plan B challenge to the NFL - one would be an issue for the courts, the other for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The Plan B case was a challenge to the actions of the NFL and seperately owned teams under anti trust law. A NHL league transformation could not be challenged as a violation of anti trust laws in the courts. Instead, the FTC would have to approve (actually just not block) the change - it would just rule on whether the new league entity would be considered monopolistic. And remember that the FTC is much more concerned with the effects of competition on consumers, not employees. And once transformed to a single entity MLS style ownership model, the league could implement policies like salary caps, a draft, any type of free agency it wished, etc, without facing any challenge on anti trust grounds - it would just be a single entity making policies for its employees.
This solution has more questions then answers though

Really the only thing this does is avoid anti-trust cases .. There are lots of better options then this one to avoid damages including offering the former players contracts similar to the ones they had under the old system to avoid damages.

If you are basing ownership on control then big market franchises with the highest value would have more control and more power .. The small market teams would have very little say in anything based on its value .. If you are an owner and invested millions would you want this ??

Franchise values change all the time .. A good season for example .. The TB lightning must be of more value as a Stanley Cup team then non-playoff team .. You would constantly have changing ownership percentages ..

What about an owner that wants to sell his interests .. all 29 other owners would have a say ..

What about a owner like Wirtz or others that want to run their teams as they chose and embezzle and laundry money as before.:D .Under a joint management all decisions within all teams including full open books for all teams .. Something that owners are very much against as evidence by the Levitt report.

What about competition .. These owners are in direct competition with each other .. and so you have massive conflict of interest decisions on one management team .. For Example .. If the big franchises as you say based on value have more say and franchise players like Crosby come along .. What is stopping the big teams from changing the rules if they can get a majority that changes the entry draft so the strong teams pick first to protect franchise values .. If they let the weak teams have all the good young players that increases their management potential and lessons the big ones ..

What about when a player becomes a UFA and multiple owners want him .. You have one management team bidding against itself for players ..

Avoiding Anti-trust is really the only advantage however lots and lots of headaches are created, spearheaded by the fact that these owners do not like one another so a 30 man partnership is a pipe dream IMO ..
 
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GSC2k2*

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The Messenger said:
This solution has more questions then answers though

Really the only thing this does is avoid anti-trust cases .. There are lots of better options then this one to avoid damages including offering the former players contracts similar to the ones they had under the old system to avoid damages.

If you are basing ownership on control then big market franchises with the highest value would have more control and more power .. The small market teams would have very little say in anything based on its value .. If you are an owner and invested millions would you want this ??

Happens every day in my world, son.

Franchise values change all the time .. A good season for example .. The TB lightning must be of more value as a Stanley Cup team then non-playoff team .. You would constantly have changing ownership percentages ..

Daft...

What about an owner that wants to sell his interests .. all 29 other owners would have a say ..

True. It's called a shareholder's agreement. Also happens every day. It exists now among the teams who have more than one owner, such as the Leafs. It is not a problem in and of itself.

What about a owner like Wirtz or others that want to run their teams as they chose and embezzle and laundry money as before. .Under a joint management all decisions within all teams including full open books for all teams .. Something that owners are very much against as evidence by the Levitt report.

Embezzle??? Laundry (sic)???!?! What an outrageous claim. Perhaps you need to consult with your counsel, or, since you seem to fancy yourself a lawyer, do a little research on "libel".

What about competition .. These owners are in direct competition with each other .. and so you have massive conflict of interest decisions on one management team .. For Example .. If the big franchises as you say based on value have more say and franchise players like Crosby come along .. What is stopping the big teams from changing the rules if they can get a majority that changes the entry draft so the strong teams pick first to protect franchise values .. If they let the weak teams have all the good young players that increases their management potential and lessons the big ones ..

different dynamics would be in place. Nothing like that is insurmountable by smart people.

What about when a player becomes a UFA and multiple owners want him .. You have one management team bidding against itself for players ..

See above. You seem to think the NHL would set up a single entity and then maek the rules up as they go along. Multiple solutions are available.

Avoiding Anti-trust is really the only advantage however lots and lots of headaches are created, spearheaded by the fact that these owners do not like one another so a 30 man partnership is a pipe dream IMO ..

Well, they "liked" each other enough (assuming that is even a relevant criteria, which i would dispute) to lock the players out for a whole season. The fact is the number of headaches (really just issues to resolve in the shareholders' agreement) would be swamped by the number of headaches eliminated.

Silliness. Pure silliness.
 

Boltsfan2029

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The Messenger said:
All fair in love and bargaining as they say .. Its all posturing and strategy to avoid IMPASSE on behalf of the NHLPA .. [/size][/font]

So, you're essentially saying the NHLPA isn't actually bargaining at all? Merely bluffing with proposals they aren't serious about? (That would explain why they wouldn't negotiate the triggers when the NHL offered to accept the union's proposal.)

Goodenow best be careful. One of the criteria for bad faith is making offers that cannot be negotiated. If in truth he's deliberately throwing out deals that he has no intention of negotiating or accepting in any negotiated form, he's really playing with fire.
 

Boltsfan2029

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Originally Posted by Weary
The guys on the bottom end would be the biggest beneficiaries. With unlimited spending, there is still a market for their skills.

Wouldn't this also require unlimited funds, which in a league that's losing, at best $90M per year (per Forbes) or at worst $200+M per year (per Levitt), seems rather unlikely?
 

Mess

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gscarpenter2002 said:
Happens every day in my world, son.

Daft...

True. It's called a shareholder's agreement. Also happens every day. It exists now among the teams who have more than one owner, such as the Leafs. It is not a problem in and of itself.

Embezzle??? Laundry (sic)???!?! What an outrageous claim. Perhaps you need to consult with your counsel, or, since you seem to fancy yourself a lawyer, do a little research on "libel".

different dynamics would be in place. Nothing like that is insurmountable by smart people.

See above. You seem to think the NHL would set up a single entity and then maek the rules up as they go along. Multiple solutions are available.

Well, they "liked" each other enough (assuming that is even a relevant criteria, which i would dispute) to lock the players out for a whole season. The fact is the number of headaches (really just issues to resolve in the shareholders' agreement) would be swamped by the number of headaches eliminated.

Silliness. Pure silliness.
Wow that is some real fancy lawyer work on your part ...

Sic .. Daft .. Silliness .!!!!!!!!. This is how you defend your opinion with such strong case law examples ..

Libel ?? by posting comments on a message board followed by a :D to boot to show seriousness.

Decertification of a union in a bargaining dispute is a legal option that can be used and has many times before including the 1994 NFL dispute .. You didn't see the NFL run off and form a single membership group now did we ??.

You don't need to be a lawyer to know that the probability of decertification in this dispute is far greater than (if even an realistic option, to avoid anti-trust) single management group..

I could see the selling of the NHL as whole to a Bain group to avoid anti-trust .. However reorganizing in an established market for the explicit purpose to avoid anti-trust may just be walking right into one of the biggest settlements in sports history awarded. The necessity of the formation of this management group alone shows intent to avoid guilt of your own bargaining practices that lead to decertification in the first place.

Perhaps you can lend your legal expertise to the NHL with your fine use of Sic, Daft & Silliness rebuttals to help the NHL win its case in court.. :)

This thread is about Goodenow's plan .. My opinion based on the regressive, ball-breaking, Hard-line, Union Busting tactics by the NHL to date in this dispute is that Decertification by the NHLPA is a possibility that I would not be surprised if it occurred..

Care to dispute that is an option to the NHLPA, or is bend over and take it the only possiblity at this point to the NHLPA in your EXPERT Lawyer opinion ??
 

Weary

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Boltsfan2029 said:
Wouldn't this also require unlimited funds, which in a league that's losing, at best $90M per year (per Forbes) or at worst $200+M per year (per Levitt), seems rather unlikely?
Bettman has been telling us all for years now that without a cap the owners won't restrain their spending. Decertification means no cap. If the owners wouldn't spend money as freely as they did during the last CBA, then Bettman is a liar and the cancelled season wasn't to ensure the health of the league, but to ensure the wealth of the owners.
 

Mess

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Boltsfan2029 said:
So, you're essentially saying the NHLPA isn't actually bargaining at all? Merely bluffing with proposals they aren't serious about? (That would explain why they wouldn't negotiate the triggers when the NHL offered to accept the union's proposal.)

Goodenow best be careful. One of the criteria for bad faith is making offers that cannot be negotiated. If in truth he's deliberately throwing out deals that he has no intention of negotiating or accepting in any negotiated form, he's really playing with fire.
What I think and what can be proven Goodenows intentions are two different things .. The NHLPA offers were legit actual offers to the NHL .. The NHL took parts of those offers and countered on them .. That alone shows that the NHLPA made valid offers to avoid your claim of surface bargaining ..

What is going on in Goodenow's head and if he ever would have signed off on a new CBA remains unanswered at this time.

On the topic of triggers .. The NHL offered that failed attempt at a deal between two vastly different proposals a NHLPA 24% rollback and a NHL Hard Cap with linkage ..

Ask yourself why the NHL did not offer these same type triggers to save the season??? :teach:

The NHL offered a $42.5 mil Hard Cap Final offer the NHLPA countered with $49.0 mil limit .. At this stage it was down to numbers only and triggers could have been created by the NHL to start at the NHLPA level and settle in to appropriate levels based on linkage to league Revenue at a agreed upon percentage ..

Forcing Goodenow and the NHLPA to reject that offer would have exposed Goodenow's true intentions had he rejected triggers at that point. The NHL could almost immediately have gone to IMPASSE at that time, possibly even finished the season with replacements and players that crossed a picket line .. If the 42.5 was the best offer then players would have had a choice to return to work if they felt Goodenow was not taking their best interest at heart ..

The NHL didn't even answer the phone at this stage just fired memo's through the media, claiming it was too late to talk. To save a season they never meet once in person. Now during the summer they want 3 meetings a week to save the next season ...Strange eh?? :dunno:

Triggers was the right idea .. Bad timing was the issue .. By not offering them at cancel the season time shows me that the NHL never wanted a season and not paying guaranteed contracts and lowering league revenue intentionally by the lockout and cancellation only strengthens its position and claim to offer lower and lower Hard Cap offers.

The gains far outweigh the losses from the NHL standpoint by those actions .. IMO
 
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GSC2k2*

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The Messenger said:
Sic .. Daft .. Silliness .!!!!!!!!. This is how you defend your opinion with such strong case law examples ..

You do understand what "sic" means, don't you? I certainly didn't want to be associated with the fumbling attempt at English that you had put forward.

Libel ?? by posting comments on a message board followed by a :D to boot to show seriousness.

Funny, I would swear that the smiley was added after the fact...


Decertification of a union in a bargaining dispute is a legal option that can be used and has many times before including the 1994 NFL dispute .. You didn't see the NFL run off and form a single membership group now did we ??.

You don't need to be a lawyer to know that the probability of decertification in this dispute is far greater than (if even an realistic option, to avoid anti-trust) single management group..

I could see the selling of the NHL as whole to a Bain group to avoid anti-trust .. However reorganizing in an established market for the explicit purpose to avoid anti-trust may just be walking right into one of the biggest settlements in sports history awarded. The necessity of the formation of this management group alone shows intent to avoid guilt of your own bargaining practices that lead to decertification in the first place.

Perhaps you can lend your legal expertise to the NHL with your fine use of Sic, Daft & Silliness rebuttals to help the NHL win its case in court.. :)

This thread is about Goodenow's plan .. My opinion based on the regressive, ball-breaking, Hard-line, Union Busting tactics by the NHL to date in this dispute is that Decertification by the NHLPA is a possibility that I would not be surprised if it occurred..

Care to dispute that is an option to the NHLPA, or is bend over and take it the only possiblity at this point to the NHLPA in your EXPERT Lawyer opinion ??
[/font

The rest of this I will deal with in a more substantive post, later.
 

Boltsfan2029

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Weary said:
Bettman has been telling us all for years now that without a cap the owners won't restrain their spending. Decertification means no cap. If the owners wouldn't spend money as freely as they did during the last CBA, then Bettman is a liar and the cancelled season wasn't to ensure the health of the league, but to ensure the wealth of the owners.

I think we all know that's some owners. It's very obvious that most owners have tried to restrain as best as they have been able to.

As for ensuring the health of the league v. wealth of the owners, wouldn't cutting the astonomical annual loss ($90M - $200+M, take your pick, either works) be mutually beneficial to both the health of the league, the owners' "wealth," ensuring their ability to continue to maintain their teams and the players' long-term personal wealth? I don't see the benefit of the owners agreeing to a system that ensures they continue to lose millions upon millions of dollars, because that surely seems to me to endanger the health of the league.

I guess I'm one of a very small minority that thinks a total win for either side is not only impossible, but undesirable -- there's a middle ground that works for both sides, they just have to find it. The desperation to "win" the battle at the possible expense of destroying the league seems like a hollow victory, indeed.
 

Boltsfan2029

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The Messenger said:
What I think and what can be proven Goodenows intentions are two different things .. The NHLPA offers were legit actual offers to the NHL .. The NHL took parts of those offers and countered on them .. That alone shows that the NHLPA made valid offers to avoid your claim of surface bargaining ..

Eh, I disagree. The NHL taking parts of an offer and countering on them in no way reflects on the validity of the total offer that was made by the PA. I don't follow your logic here. They're negotiators, not mind readers.

The fact that Goodenow rejected acceptance of the PA's own offer without attempting to negotiate the triggers in the flip/flop shows that the PA didn't consider their own offer to be valid, IMO. Why on earth would they not jump at the chance to implement the offer they claimed would absolutely, positively work? If they had negotiated those triggers they would have gotten exactly the deal they wanted and, since they knew it would absolutely, positively work, there was zero chance of the proposal flip-flopping as the triggers obviously would never be reached. Seems they would have nothing to lose, yet they wouldn't even discuss it. (And for anyone who would claim it, I don't buy that the owners would deliberately undermine things to get the flip-flop to trigger. If the system was working, that would make zero sense and, as billionaires, they're not stupid enough to throw away something that works -- the old "if it ain't broke" thing.) Were this to go before the NLRB, in this one move they could conclude there is no basis to a claim at bad faith on the NHL's part (they offered to accept the PA's proposal) and would have to seriously question the good faith bargaining by the PA due to questionable validity of the PA's proposals.

Ask yourself why the NHL did not offer these same type triggers to save the season??? :teach:

My best guess is because the NHLPA had previously flatly rejected the idea and refused to even consider negotiating it.
 

Mess

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Feb 27, 2002
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Boltsfan2029 said:
My best guess is because the NHLPA had previously flatly rejected the idea and refused to even consider negotiating it.
The NHLPA has flatly rejected both a Hard Cap and Linkage as well many many times and that has not stopped the NHL from continuing to offer the same old same old ..
 

Boltsfan2029

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Jul 8, 2002
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In deleted threads
The Messenger said:
The NHLPA has flatly rejected both a Hard Cap and Linkage as well many many times and that has not stopped the NHL from continuing to offer the same old same old ..

Same can be said for both sides on many counts. They need to can the egos and get to honest work on this deal -- both sides. This isn't either a "the owners are evil" or a "the players are greedy" scenario. Both sides are, at best, too stubborn.
 
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