Quote:
Originally Posted by vokiel
The current lockout isn't illegal. The goal of decertification is to make it illegal from the moment there's no union. The only damages that players could claim would be for price fixing when the lockout is made illegal. So if the league starts their activities as soon as the PA opts for decertification I don't see which damages they can argue about. The owners will just, as you say, argue about a clean slate and try re-negotiating contracts without a CBA in the way.
There's no retro-activity here. You can't claim that you're no longer a union therefor you should receive damage payments for when you were. That makes no sense. Add that you can't either as a player say I was making X as an employee with CBA advantages therefor I should be making X as a company trading with the same company. I don't see how this can work. It's certainly crooked if it does imho.
|
The argument by the NHLPA will be that they are owed compensation from the moment the NHLPA is decertified because at that point the lockout will be deemed illegal by virtue of the fact that there the players no longer have a bargaining agent. I don't believe I said anything about retroactivity of damages prior to decertification... The damages will come as a result of the NHL cancelling the whole season if the NHLPA decertifies, which Daly already said they would.
This is validated by the fact what the Habs, Flames and Oilers players attempted to do earlier in September which is to get an injunction to call the lockout illegal because the union is not registered in those respective provinces. The injunctions were rejected because they were not deemed urgent but the Tribunals will still hold a hearing later. As such, if the labour tribunals end up determining that there is no union and thus the lockout is illegal, the players from Alberta and Quebec teams will actually have to be allowed to work which essentially means the Habs, the Flames and the Oilers would have to honour their contracts. But, I'm not sure if the tribunals will accept the argument that they have no bargaining agent.
If, however, the NHLPA decertifies altogether, the thinking on the part of the NHLPA and the players is that ALL 30 NHL teams will need to honour the contracts despite there being no CBA in place. The NHL, as I said in my previous post, will argue that the contracts are all null and void, which is also your argument. The Courts will need to decide if they are or not. That is why decertification is a measure of last resort because only one side will be left standing. If the Courts side with the NHL that the contracts are null and void, then the NHL can turn around and say, take our initial 43% HRR offer or nothing. If the Court sides with the players, then the owners will be on the hook for all the money that they failed to pay the players since decertification and then they still need to renegotiate the CBA. The damages for breach of contract would be in the billions.
Essentially, my point is that the players would NOT decertify unless they thought that there contracts would be null and void. That defeats their entire objective. They fully expect their contracts to be honoured with decertification.