Labor lessons

NHL needs hat trick with collective bargaining agreement

As baseball fans everywhere breathe a collective sigh of relief, they see Major League Baseball finally coming to grips with the changing landscape of professional sports. Hardly an epiphany, this revelatory process was 30 years in the making, with several missteps along the way, including eight work stoppages and a canceled World Series.

Thankfully, neither a strike nor a canceled postseason will be part of the 2002 legacy. For the first time, owners and players dealt from a perspective that was not omnipotent. Both acknowledged the old adage that predicts that men who disregard history are likely to repeat it to ruinous effect.

The only question is, where did this sudden insight come from? Maybe Major League Baseball studied the labor transformation in the auto industry that transpired in Detroit in the early '80s. It, too, was born of a bloated, insular and smug management, as well as an equally self-righteous union -- too full of themselves for so long that neither labor nor management could identify the warning signs. Together, both sides nearly doomed another cultural staple -- the American-made automobile.

Think about the similarities. Chrysler was the small-market team in jeopardy, requiring a government bailout -- a plight reflected in numerous baseball teams today, particularly the league-run Expos.

General Motors was the monolithic company that had grown too big for its own good, refusing to acknowledge loss of market share to the Japanese as a sign that change was required and that its business practices might be outmoded and at the root of the industry’s decay. Sounds like the Steinbrenner Yankees to me -- an organization that can't see the big picture beyond the wealth generated by its New York entity.

Finally, there was Ford Motor Company, more solvent and structurally sound than Chrysler, yet far enough behind GM that it could adjust to the changing climate quickly enough to prosper throughout the late '80s and well into the '90s. Ford of that era is reflected by today’s baseball teams that have found a way to stay competitive, yet with the margin for error rapidly eroding due to escalating costs and demands.

Ultimately, the auto industry as a whole didn't right itself until labor and management entered into a much more cooperative mind-set to resolve issues, finally forsaking the long-held antagonistic approach. After all, they were of the same business, and for one side to bludgeon the other spelled the death sentence for all. That low point produced progressive management strategies, process improvements in product design and manufacturing, as well as a nod to human factors for employees, such as training and education.

These steps did not come without sacrifice -- just ask the workers who went without pay hikes for years, literally buying time for Chrysler to rebound. It paid off in the form of cash bonuses and healthy retirement funds, and while their plight was largely one of necessity, much of the sentiment at the time was one of prideful duty -- to the company, the industry and the American people as a whole.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First, the baseball folks finally changed their way of thinking, which was overdue. Strong-arm union tactics make sense when working conditions are deplorable and the plight of the worker is tenuous and arbitrary. Obstinate ownership is understandable if their companies are at risk due to subversive, wildcat union activity. That was hardly the case here. Does this agreement fix all that ails the great game of baseball? Of course not.

Still, give both sides credit for realizing that the previous path, which produced eight stoppages in eight opportunities, was flawed. Now both sides have a chance to advocate and address change on common ground. Second, successful conciliatory management/labor models -- like the one begun in the Motor City two decades ago -- teach that accord does not always indicate vulnerability. It often furthers viability.

What does this have to do with the NHL? Everything -- even though the NHL collective bargaining agreement still has two years remaining. It would be prudent for Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow to become history buffs, reviewing case studies of any and every kind that demonstrate the benefits of cooperation vs. the follies and foibles of an anachronistic, adversarial agenda at the bargaining table.

The NHL has an opportunity to take the high road and build momentum over the next two seasons and beyond. There is an opportunity to further the standard in the sports and entertainment marketplace when it comes to labor relations as it pertains to the overall good of the hockey industry. Major League Baseball reached base safely. The National Hockey League must score a hat trick.

Darren Eliot, a former NHL goaltender, is a hockey analyst for CNNSI.com.

 

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