Background: Jonathan Baird works for the Social Security Administration, Dan Williams is a government teacher. Both work in union dominated workplaces; my opinion stems from that and that both of them get the new NFL policy wrong from different viewpoints. Mine? The owners own the teams – they can make policies that their employees have to follow; Baird disagrees (reformatted, emphasis mine):
The new policy outlined by Commissioner Roger Goodell that requires NFL players to stand during the national anthem did not come out of any collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players. It was a unilateral assertion by management. Up until now, there has been no NFL rule that prohibited players from demonstrating during the national anthem. I am at a loss to understand how the owners think they can enforce a unilateral declaration.
The NFL players are represented by the NFL Players Association and they were not even talked to about the new policy. To be legitimate, the new policy must be a subject of collective bargaining and that hasn’t occurred. This dispute is about the rights of labor and democracy in the workplace. We are way past a time when bosses can rule by fiat and simply dictate policy.
In a lot of cases, that may well be true but when employee behavior is driving away business, the owners have to step in or, in the worst case, lose that business. I don’t know Baird’s background but unlike government workplaces, owners certainly do have the authority to do exactly what the NFL owners did. There are a lot of things that the private sector can do that are utterly foreign in the public sector. We also see from Baird a generalized disdain for the private sector motivation:
For the NFL owners, the matter of protest is fundamentally about the bottom line. With NFL viewership trending down and with President Trump whining, the owners caved in to conservative pressure. Apparently, the owners believe sanitizing the game by disappearing protest will boost ratings and keep the money flowing. Under the new rule, players who want to protest can do so privately in the locker room and will be allowed to join their teammates on the field after the anthem without incurring a penalty. The price of protest is a new invisibility.
I wouldn’t categorize the tuning out population (estimates are that the NFL has lost upwards of 1/3 their former viewership, especially the last coupla years, has been the SJW politicization of sports which used to be political neutral game. A place to escape to rather than a place to be preached at. To paraphrase Laura Ingraham: “shut up and play football”. The seats are empty because people want sports and not politics for their money. TV watchers wanted football and not politics for the price of their eyeballs. The NFL didn’t deliver what the customers wanted.
Profits matter – one doesn’t put their money at risk without the reward of a good return on that money. Sure, some owners are joining in – but not to the point of risking their franchises. Baird forgets that his salary is paid by those that work at or own profitable businesses that pay the taxes that fuel his wages and benefits. But he goes on in an incoherent rant of Constitutional wrongness and the playing of the race card.
But you can read that all here. Then there was Dan Williams (aka, ‘Grok commenter mrwonderful) who had this to say:
Dan Williams
FACT: ABC canceling Roseanne Barr’s show is a perfectly legal example of the Free Market at work. FACT: Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem is protected under our 1st Amendment. Anyone who does not understand these basic facts, or who bellyaches about the first person I mentioned having their rights infringed upon but applauds the second person I mentioned having theirs infringed upon – should leave the country because they really don’t believe in its founding philosophy.
Of course, like many others, Dan’s notion of First Amendment rights goes sideways in claiming for it powers that do not exist:
Actually, it’s not, Dan – at least in the way you think. The Constitution was written to limit the GOVERNMENT, not people. Govt cannot force Kaepernick not to kneel (at least in that venue – go ahead and try to protest in the same manner in a TSA line at an airport may have a different outcome). It is clear that you don’t understand the basic reason for the First – it is to constrain Govt against Civil Society and the Individuals within it from expressing themselves and at that time, against the govt they were rebelling against (the King) and realized that rebellious speech (which might be labeled hate speech today) may be necessary in the future against a new government.
Private employers are NOT restricted by the First and do have the right to set behavioral and speech rules at their place of business or where employees are representing the good name of said business. If those strictures are violated, an employee can be dismissed with cause (and in the case of a union shop, based on the bargaining agreement, or if the case, a private contract).
Now, if a private concern accepts tax monies (think colleges), they can be held to First Amendment strictures when they try to limit student speech (re: viewpoint discrimination). But to say that football players can say or do what they want under in the private sector under the aegis of First Amendment is wrong.
