NBA Lockout: Does Decertification Mean No 2011-12 Season?

Decertification.

A lot of you probably haven't heard of the word unless you happen to be an expert on labor laws in finance.

According to BusinessDictionary.Com, decertification is a procedure under which

(1) employees of a firm can disassociate themselves from a specific union, or

(2) a firm can withdraw a union's official recognition as the exclusive bargaining representative of the firm's employees.

This was precisely the idea on the minds of no less than 50 NBA players who were on a conference call with an antitrust lawyer the other day.

A lot of NBA players, as it were, have been disillusioned by the manner in which negotiations between owners and the players' union have proceeded over the last few days. Under the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, the players were guaranteed 57 percent of all Basketball Related Income. The owners have lowered it to 52.5 percent right now and want it even lower, at 50 percent.

That 4.5 percent represents $180 million annually. In a league with 450 players, each player stands to lose $400,000 per year on an average.

Now for Kobe Bryant, who's due to make $30 million in the final year of his contract, this is not exactly a matter of consequence. However, the league is not comprised entirely of superstars. There are players for whom this drop in salary would hurt badly. Losing an additional $180 million is something the players will not and should not have to stand for.

To a layman, it seems to be an impasse, perhaps with the owners having a slight edge. If employees go on strike, there's no one collecting pay checks, is there? As a result, the employees may eventually have get back to work on the employer's terms.

That, however, is not the case. The players still have one card left to play, and it's their ace of spades.

By dissolving the union, nobody is left for the owners to negotiate with.

This almost guarantees the season being cancelled.

For decertification to take place, 130 players need to vote in favor of a vote. If the required number is met, the National Labor Relations Board will conduct the second vote after 45 days. This vote requires a simple majority, i.e. 226 players in favor of decertification.

Of course, bridging the gap between 130 and 226 will not be easy. But if this does happen, well, the owners are in big trouble.

Here is an analogy that would be apt to describe the situation owners would find themselves in once the decertification vote goes through.

Imagine a set of convenience stores in a city and a union of shopkeepers. If the stores were to sign an agreement with the union that shopkeepers would not be paid more than $25,000 annually, all is well and good. However, if the stores agreed amongst each other to not pay any employee more than said amount, without the consent of the union, it would be a case of illegal price fixing.

Similarly, if the stores laid off their shopkeepers all at once and every one of them refused to rehire the sacked employees unless they took a pay cut to $25,000, it would be illegal under antitrust laws.

These examples would be similar to the manner in which NBA owners are treating their players. It is all right to allow the players only a certain amount of money via a legal agreement. However, if the players refuse to sign such an agreement and as a result, the owners do not allow them to pursue their livelihood, a massive lawsuit could be filed.

This is a lawsuit that the owners would stand a very great chance of losing. This would result in the implementation of an economic system designed to benefit the players, meaning possible elimination of the salary cap, rookie scale salaries and the luxury tax, protection the owners have had for years.

It is that fear that could lead the owners to fight the idea of decertification as hard as possible. This can only be done in one way: concede some more ground to the players in a deal that could be signed within those 45 days before decertification is put to a vote by the National Labor Relations Board.

If a deal could not be done in the stipulated time, however, and decertification goes through, we lose all hope for a 2011-2012 season. Civil lawsuits can take ages to be settled, especially with the two sides so far apart.

I find it extremely odd, though, that during this whole fiasco nobody advocated implementing an interim agreement so that games could be played while negotiations continued.

Can you imagine a lawyer telling an employer trying to reach an agreement with his employees not to allow them to work during the course of the negotiations? Due to this unbelievable oversight, we won't get basketball until November 2012 if the decertification vote goes through.

I find it terrible that I find myself writing an article that reads like something out of the Wall Street Journal rather than Sports Illustrated. However, if decertification is the only option to improve this system, I would rather it gets fixed once and for all rather than the cracks be glued up every seven years and subjecting fans of the game to misery every decade.

The sad thing is that despite whoever wins this ugly battle between millionaires and billionaires, it's us, the fans, who lose.