Hey, have you ever heard about the 1987 NFL strike? Well, it was one of the oldest and most controversial labor strikes in professional sports in the United States. It all started when an agreement between the National Football League and its players expired in July 1987. The players had declared their intent to strike in response to a 32% drop in free-agent salaries and a salary cap proposal from the NFL.
It seemed like the players had been forced to decide to strike, due to the owners trying to impose a wage-cap system and wholesale nfl jerseys from china cut salaries. The players demanded higher wages, cheap nfl jerseys from china free-agent bidding, team-funded player pensions, and cheap nfl jerseys better job protection for injured players. So, the NFL players union officially went on strike on September 22, cheap jerseys 1987, and the regular season was forced to be cancelled after week two.
It was around that time that the atmosphere at the stadiums and in the locker rooms was really intense. Everyone could sense the anger of the players and coaches, as they had not been offered any real alternatives to the salary and pension caps. And, with more and more teams threatening to move and replace the players with contracts, it seemed like peace of mind was as far away as ever.
The pressure wholesale jerseys from china the owners was so great that many of the players had to take pay cuts to avoid being locked-out. It seemed like a no-win situation for the players, and they had reached a dead end. That’s when the players decided to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement on their own.
So, both sides met at the bargaining table, and eventually a new eleventh-hour agreement was reached. It included a thirty-six percent increase in free-agent salaries, cheap jerseys from china a team-funded player pension, and better job protection for injured players. After six weeks of tough negotiations, the players voted in favor of the new agreement and the strike was finally over.
Nevertheless, that conflict didn’t just end there. Even though the NFL strike was technically resolved with a new collective bargaining agreement, the lingering inequalities between the players and the owners led to another twenty-year labor dispute that still has not been settled today.
The owners won, cheap jerseys of course. In 1991 they introduced a salary cap system that until today keeps players earning salaries far below market value. And, since then the owners have taken full control of the negotiations, cheap jerseys leaving the players completely powerless.
The result of this has been a huge inequality between players of the highest and lowest paid teams. While teams at the top of the league get increasingly more money each year, teams at the bottom are constantly being squeezed by the owners. This unfair imbalance in power and wages has been one of the main reasons why the NFL’s labor disputes have continued for over two decades.
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