A Tale Of Two Contract Disputes

Ah, Labor: the virtue of the working class; the sufferings of a mother bringing another future worker into the world to compete for resources; the source of hundreds of thousands of sports fanatics around the world. And typically, the side I would choose in any dispute.

A Bay Area Rapid Transit Union is calling a strike as of the end of service on Sunday night, which would shut down the central spine of the local public transit hub, overloading the other transit agencies and leaving thousands of workers free to worry less about whether their own jobs are secure, because they will be worrying about just how they will get to those jobs in the first place.

Keep in mind, we are also approaching the Labor Day weekend, when the Bay Bridge will be shut down for construction efforts. That could be interesting.

Why am I talking about a labor strike in a sports blog? Well, every story of a dispute needs a good cop/bad cop angle, and in this case, the BART union is the good cop. Even though the average BART worker salary is more than twice what I make.

The bad cop, sadly, comes from the world of sports.

The bad cop is San Francisco 49ers top draft pick, Michael Crabtree, who is threatening to hold out for an entire season. He wants to be paid 'top 5' money, commensurate with what someone drafted among the top five selections would earn, even though he was drafted at number 10.

A few disclaimers on this before people doubt my sympathy for the 'laborer': yes, as far as the BART union goes, it would be a hard job; they deserve to be well paid; and historically, management has been known to use economic downturns to stick it to the worker. As far as an athlete goes, yes, they can be considered labor, and have had legitimate labor issues over the decades--watch certain episodes of Ken Burns' excellent Baseball documentary; and yes, sports are physically demanding, with many consequences for the athlete in later years, so they do need to be well paid to take care of themselves and their family in later years.

But Michael Crabtree, regardless of wanting top five money without the rationale of, you know, actually being in the top five, seriously, can you really not live with whatever you are certain to earn as a top draft pick in the NFL? Every year the trend has been for players and agents to ask for more and more money. This is not a cost-of-living sort of trend; this is nothing to do with inflation. If Crabtree gets the sort of money he is looking for, according to SI.com's John Lopez, he would earn $3 million more per season than Jerry Rice ever made. Michael Crabtree is not yet Jerry Rice.

Michael, if you think you're going to struggle to make it in this admittedly expensive city, I can tell you where the cheap sushi and the good happy hour deals can be found.

Here's the thing: Crabtree's holdout may be a negotiating ploy, but it sure seems tactless, to say the least. Assuming you want to be a success at the game, and assuming you want fans to love you, don't you think you should avoid pissing everyone off as to how much money you think you deserve?

Sports are simply sports. This is a country where socialism is considered a dirty word--it's considered this mostly by people who don't pay attention to what socialism really is and whether it might be beneficial to them, instead relying on the advice of people with a vested interest in capitalistic trends. Nevertheless, until our currency becomes useless for anything except kindling, I don't think athletes should take our 'free market' spirit for granted, because it isn't like they are short of cash.

How much do you really need to live well?