Gene Upshaw: Labor Legend

Gene Upshaw

OK, so I took some heat earlier this summer for my portrayal of Gene Upshaw as the good guy in the debate over NFLPA pension plans. I still think Upshaw is the good guy here.

I found this outstanding article posted by ESPN.com Tuesday Morning Quarterback columist Gregg Easterbrook. Here are some of the most relevant points pertaining to Upshaw and the NFLPA...

The foremost responsibilities of a labor union are to maximize wages and jobs; on these scores, the NFLPA numbers among the most-accomplished unions ever. Consider NFL wage trends since 1993, when the salary-cap system and current collective-bargaining format were adopted. Stated in today's dollars -- all money figures in this section are converted to 2007 dollars -- in 1993, the salary cap was $47 million. This year, the NFL salary cap is $109 million. That's a 132-percent increase in per-team player spending over 14 years, roughly a 10-percent annual improvement.

Easterbrook addresses the debate over the NFLPA's accomplishments:

...remember that pro football free agency did not pop out of the air, it was won by the union. Once free agency was achieved, the NFLPA resumed collective bargaining and decided to abandon confrontation for cooperative negotiation. Fourteen years of cooperative negotiation have proven a better model for NFL players, including the retired players, than the confrontation that came before -- much higher pay, no lost wages from strikes or lockouts. The proof is in the pudding: Why are ESPN, CBS, Fox and NBC willing to pay astounding sums for NFL broadcast rights? Labor peace assures the networks a steady supply of quality games.

and the coup de grace...

Beginning at age 55, current players will receive $5,600 per year for life, per NFL season played. So the average player who's in the league three seasons will get a $16,800 annual pension; a five-year performer gets a $28,000 pension and a 10-year veteran gets $56,000 annually. The start year of 55 is sooner than most corporate and public-sector pensions. And the key point is that they are pensions for only a few years of employment.

Corporate or government employees in traditional plans get their pensions in return for decades of work. The average NFL player who will get $16,800 per annum starting at age 55 worked three years and clocked out for his final time at age 26. "Retired" has never been the right word for former pro athletes, since most players leaving the NFL don't retire, rather, go to some other career for most of their adult lives. Current-player benefits also include an annuity that if invested conservatively would provide roughly another $5,000 annually beginning at 55, and a 401(k) with $20,000 in annual matching payments for those smart enough to use it. Thus even the average player who stays in the NFL only three seasons can put himself in solid long-term financial position if he makes smart choices.

Doesn't Major League Baseball promise retirees a lot more? Yes and no. A currently retiring 10-year MLB player will qualify for a $175,000 pension, versus $56,000 for the 10-year NFL player. But the MLB pension does not start until age 62, so the 10-year NFL veteran is $392,000 ahead on the day the baseball benefits begin. Because the NFL employs many more players than MLB, football's benefits are spread to a larger group of pensioners. Finally, the NFL pension fund is in better financial shape than its MLB counterpart. The NFL fund has $1.1 billion in the bank, while the MLB pension system has roughly $1 billion in unfunded liabilities.

For older NFL retirees, pension benefits are generally about half the level of those for current players. An NFL athlete who retired before 1982 gets $3,000 per year per season played, so a five-year older retired player draws $15,000 annually, a 10-season older player draws $30,000. But bear in mind, many older retired players had few or no pension rights in their contracts, and left the NFL expecting little or nothing when they aged. Before 1959, there were no NFL pensions. A system established for those retiring in the 1960s and 1970s originally paid only about $1,000 per season played and did not kick in unless the veteran had five seasons -- with an average three-season career, the typical player never vested. Retroactive pension increases in the 1993, 1998, 2002 and 2006 contracts upped the older player's pension from $1,000 to $3,000 annually per year played and eliminated the five-year floor. So older players generally get only half what current players will get. But that amount is more than double what older players received before 1993.

As for the whiners...

The older players you've seen quoted denouncing the current union -- Herb Adderley, DeLamielleure, Ditka, Bernie Parrish and others -- never won significant pension rights when they were active members with NFLPA voting power. The big pension increases for older players have come since the advent of cooperative bargaining, while the earlier fist-shaking approach, which the old timers extol, failed to win decent pensions. Older players such as Ditka who today pound the table saying the union should be confrontational are overlooking that it was the cooperative years that got the older players practically everything they have. Had the union remained confrontational, NFL income would not have risen so spectacularly, and there would have been less revenue to assign to the older retirees.

So let these idiots blame Gene Upshaw until they are blue in the face. No labor leader has done more for the constiuents that he represents or the industry that his constinuents make their living in. Are my views tainted by the fact that he was a Raidedr? Absolutely not. He's done plenty for the players. Give the guy some credit, and don't believe everything you see thrown at you by grown men who didn't have the common sense to save for a rainy day.

Easterbrook's entire article can be found here