Re: Charity begins at home

[Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu]

j.hironaka@unesco.org wrote:

> I'm not a labor history expert but it seems to me just intuitively that
> the owner's insistence on elements of command-economy, market-rigging
> would draw howls of protest from ordinary folks if it were imposed in
> almost any other American labor context (whether against super wealthy
> screen-actors or working-class truck-drivers). 

The proposal by the owners has nothing to do with "command"
(centrally-planned) economy or market-rigging. Collusion by the owners not to
pay a player above a certain amount would be an example of the latter, and an
imposition by the league of arbitrary, non-guaranteed salaries on each player
would be an example of the former. If you think that there are "regular"
unions that do not accept restrictions on their compensation, you may have
been living in France too long :) (although that's not true even in union-run
France, even though it sometimes seems that way). 

Salaried employees, whether unionized or not, by definition must accept
limitations on both the amount and the growth of their salary-related
compensation, or there's no point in employing them. Moreover, in the real
world owners have the option of firing their employees, or reducing their pay,
to improve the infamous "bottom line" when it is unsatisfactory. In the NBA,
the employees (the players) can't be fired even if they assault their
superiors (see Feerick's decision), the few non-guaranteed contracts to
marginal players notwithstanding. 

It is inarguable that the combination of no limits on compensation +
guaranteed long-term contracts in a limited-commodity market like the NBA is
simply not feasible. If you think that the owners should just let Adam Smith's
"invisible hand" control the costs in the NBA, you're dreaming. Truly
free-market economies do not exist anywhere in the world, even under the most
favorable conditions - which professional sports certainly do not have.  

> On the face of it, the
> escrow system really seems to me like an almost comical demand. How many
> bosses do you know would be ballsy enough to ask you (with a straight
> face, even) "just in case I spend too recklessly, can't I please just
> deduct it from your future salary?"

How is it comical, given the above? If your employer spends too recklessly on
your salary, Joe, when the times get tight, you'll simply be asked to take a
pay cut, or be fired. If you were irreplaceable or un-fireable, and refuse to
play along, your company will fold (I'm not talking about unesco.org here :))
More likely, you'll accept a compensation package that fits the employer's
growth plans from the very beginning, or will be told to take a hike. In the
real world, no-risk offers that are worth more than half the company are
exceedingly unlikely, and almost never are termed "insulting" by the intended
recipients. 
 
> I guess what spares this owner-imposed lockout from being more uniformly
> perceived by both conservative and liberal pundits as strangely
> "un-American" and "anti-competitive" is that the player's are widely

I think what spares it is understanding that a business can't operate by
having growing-without-limit, virtually irreducible (i.e., guaranteed
contracts) operating costs. 

> characterized as super spoiled and shallow people, regardless of how
> hard a few <g> may have worked to beat the many and staggering odds it
> takes to earn a job in the NBA.

Well, let's not be kidding ourselves here, Joe. I, like most people, could've
been practicing my b-ball skills every waking hour of my life, and not made it
to the NBA. As either McHale or Red said, if it were all about hard work, we
could put five plumbers or carpenters on the floor, and win championships.
Although, undoubtedly, many NBA players worked hard to get to the NBA, I doubt
they worked any harder than the average b-ball recreational player. There are
plenty of NBA players who did not pick up a basketball until they were in high
school. 

K. Kveraga