NFL bosses target union leader Drew Brees

This is what a union thug looks like.

Outspoken union leaders risk being singled out and punished by management, even if they're millionaire NFL stars. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees can attest to that.

Brees, the NFL Offensive Player of the Year who led the Saints to a Super Bowl victory in 2010, is fighting to secure a strong contract from his team.

According to Dave Zirin at The Nation, it isn’t about Brees asking for too much. Rather, Brees is being targeted for his trade unionism:

In fall 2010, it was Brees who led a procession onto the field in full view of the Sunday Night Football cameras with one finger in the air, a symbol that both teams—the Saints and Vikings—were actually one team united against ownership…As the team’s union representative and member of the NFLPA [National Football League Players Association] executive board, Brees remained outspoken and was one of the lead plaintiffs in the lockout lawsuits against the NFL.

The NFLPA is demanding an investigation into whether the Saints are going after Brees for his union activism.

As Zirin reports, Brees has also defended fellow players -- including Will Smith, Anthony Hargrove, Jonathan Vilma and Scott Fujita -- against charges they took part in a bounty program to injure opponents.

Brees is leveraging his fame to argue that he and his team are being targeted for the crime of being loud and proud union leaders during last year’s NFL lockout.

Former teammate Fujita – the recipient of the 2010 Teamsters Human Rights Award and the brother of Jason Fujita, a member of Local 492 – explains why Brees has become such a big target for league bosses:

In recent years Drew has taken some strong positions against league management. He doesn’t have to do this, but he chooses to because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and because he’s a natural leader who all players look to and respect. That’s quite rare for someone of his stature. He has great conviction.

Zirin explains what’s at stake for workers and union power as a whole:

There is no higher cultural platform in the country than the National Football League. NBC’s Sunday Night Football is the highest-rated program of the fall season. The Super Bowl is the most watched program in the history of this country. Drew Brees has been one of the faces of this league since the Saints won the Super Bowl in 2010. If he can be spanked like an unruly child for the crime of standing with his union, what does that portend for the public sector worker in Ohio, the Chicago teacher who just voted to go on strike or the Starbucks barista trying to start a union? I’m not saying that Drew Brees is some kind of Joe Hill with a tight spiral, but this is about ensuring that anyone who wants a union or is in a union can speak out in defense of their livelihood.

Amen!

--Union Thug

Whoa! NFL Players Assoc. to join anti-RTW rally in IN

This just in: According to WTHR in Indianapolis, NFL players will join a rally against right-to-work-for-less sometime between now and the Super Bowl:

With 18 days until the Super Bowl, the Players Union says it will join peaceful protests in Indianapolis, but it's unclear if that means picket lines outside Lucas Oil Stadium on game day.

"Right now they've got Jay Cutler and Rex Grossman," says Web analyst Brian Howey with Howey Politics Indiana. "Two Indiana quarterbacks that have come to their cause.

We don't know much more than that, but this is just awesome news!  These guys have been so great -- they put out a statement opposing right-to-work, and six Hoosier players sent letters to lawmakers telling them to vote no. The head of the NFLPA, Dee Smith, did a terrific interview with The Nation. Here's the money quote:

If folks in Indiana and that great legislature want to pass a bill that really is something called “Right to Work,” have a constitutional amendment that guarantees every citizen a job, that’s a “right to work.”

There's more:

What this is instead is a right to ensure that ordinary working citizens can’t get together as a team, can’t organize, can’t stand together and can’t fight management on an even playing field. From a sports union, our union, our men and their families understand the power of management and understand how much power management can wield over an individual person. So don’t call it a “right to work.” If you want to have an intelligent discussion about what the bill is, call it what it is. Call it an anti-organizing bill. Fine. If that’s what the people want to do in order to put a bill out there, let’s cast a vote on whether or not ordinary workers can get together and represent themselves, and let’s have a real referendum.