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.
