Dealing With a Deluge
College athletes and concession workers are winning, while the NWSL is in crisis and the NBA's anti-vaxxers have found an ally in Ted Cruz
Dear readers,
When it rains, it pours. After a positively arid sport and politics new cycle last week, we got a deluge this week.
In straight sports news, Major League Baseball’s regular season mercifully (for us) concludes today. Southpaw’s official adopted team is the very fun Seattle Mariners, who are somehow still fighting for a playoff spot on the last day of the season. We’re sorry in advance for cursing them.
There were a bunch of important and meaty stories this week, so we’ve decided to go with another “potpourri” to allow us to cover some more ground. Admittedly, all these stories got overshadowed by the high drama that unfolded on Capitol Hill this week, so we’re here to remind you that this little corner of the world can still have some big impacts. Let’s get to it.
-Calder and Ian
College Athletes of the World, Unite!
Since college athletes won the right to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) earlier this year, one major question has loomed on the horizon: will players take the additional step of forming a union? On Wednesday, they moved one step closer to that goal when the National Labor Relations Board issued an advisory memo stating that athletes at private colleges and universities should by law be considered employees, in contradiction of the NCAA’s stated policy that they are “student-athletes.” The memo made it clear that as employees, college athletes are entitled to a whole host of federal rights and protections under the National Labor Relations Act, chief among them the right to form a union and engage in collective bargaining over their working conditions.
“The freedom to engage in far-reaching and lucrative business enterprises makes players at academic institutions much more similar to professional athletes who are employed by a team to play a sport, while simultaneously pursuing business ventures to capitalize on their fame and increase their income,” wrote NLRB general council Jennifer Abruzzo, who authored the memo. As a consequence, the law “support[s] the conclusion that certain players at academic institutions are statutory employees, who have the right to act collectively to improve their terms and conditions of employment.”
This is, to put it mildly, a very big deal. Union membership would allow athletes to fight for an array of additional rights and protections, including expanded medical care, better academic opportunities, and, most importantly, fair wages. To sweeten the deal, a would-be union of college athletes could also become a potent Democratic force, especially in the South and Southwest. Although the memo does not guarantee that college athletes will form a union—that decision ultimately rests with the athletes themselves—it does place them on very solid legal ground.
Giants of Labor
If college athletes need an example of labor power at its best, they should look no further than San Francisco. On Wednesday, UNITE HERE Local 2, the local that represents over 900 concession workers at the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park, announced that they had reached a deal with the team’s food subcontractor after threatening to strike during the Giants’ postseason run. The deal was a massive victory for the workers, and it included some impressive concessions: a retroactive $3 an hour raise, a separate, retroactive $1.50 an hour hazard pay bonus for 2020 and 2021, additional yearly raises that will ultimately total to a $7 an hour increase by 2024, and improvements to their health care and pension plans. The deal also included beefed-up COVID protections, which had been a major sticking point in the negotiations.
The action was a powerful demonstration that, regardless of the hollowed-out state of the organized labor movement at the national level, strikes—and the threat of strikes—remain an effective way for workers to win lasting concessions. As one journo put it on Twitter, “The only thing as powerful as a strike is the threat of a strike, and the concessions workers at the Giants' Oracle Park are a reminder of that.” That power will be put to the test again soon, as a wave of strikes sweeps across the country, from John Deere’s factories in the midwest to Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California.
Megan Rapinoe to the NWSL’s enablers: “FUCK YOU”
On Thursday, the National Women’s Soccer League launched an investigation into allegations of sexual coercion made against prominent NWSL coach Paul Riley. The allegations, published in a lengthy investigation by The Athletic, detail Riley’s efforts to used his position as head coach to coerce players into having sex with him. The report also claims that Riley routinely made disparaging comments about his players’ weight, physical appearance, and sexual orientations. On Thursday, the North Carolina Courage fired Riley, who had been a coach in the NWSL for over a decade.
The Athletic’s report came only three days after the NWSL banned former Washington Spirit head coach Richie Burke following a league-led investigation that found that Burke verbally and emotionally abused his players. The investigation also found that senior members of the Spirit organization had mishandled the allegations, leading the NWSL to suspend the team’s management from participating in official league business. The league launched the investigation after The Washington Post published a story detailing several allegations of abuse made against Burke by former players.
The two investigations have raised broader questions about whether the league is doing enough to protect its players from predatory behavior. On Thursday, the NWSL Players Association published a statement of solidarity with the three players who made the allegations against Riley and Burke, stating in no uncertain terms that “the NWSL has failed us.” USWNT star Megan Rapinoe also weighed in on Twitter, writing, “To everyone in a position of power who let this happen, heard it & dismissed it, signed off on this monster moving to another team w/zero repercussions, FUCK YOU.”
Ted Cruz is Trying to Team Up With Our Favorite Flat-Earther
The wackiest and most convoluted story of the week came out of the NBA, where a small group of unvaccinated players has gotten sucked—willingly or not—into the universe of right-wing anti-vax conspiracism.
Brooklyn Nets star and erstwhile flat-earther Kyrie Irving got the ball rolling on Monday when he gave a meandering and largely incomprehensible justification for his refusal to get the vaccine. That same day, Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal told reporters that he is still unvaccinated, wondering aloud why he should get the vaccine if vaccinated people still contracted covid. “I’m just asking the question,” he mused. Then on Tuesday, LeBron James waded into the debate, telling reporters that he and his family had gotten the vaccine but that he would refuse to use his platform to encourage others to do so. “We’re talking about individuals’ bodies,” King James told reporters. “We’re not talking about something that’s political or racism or police brutality and things of that nature.”
LeBron’s decision to ignore the very real political debates surrounding the vaccine is pretty dumb, and we’ll probably spend 800 words telling you why somewhere down the road. But believe it or not, it gets worse! That’s thanks to Senator Ted Cruz, who on Wednesday took to Twitter to express his support for Beale, Kyrie, and even LeBron, whose support of the Black Lives Matter Movement Cruz has repeatedly denounced.
Like we said above, there are probably five or six full Southpaw editions’ worth of material packed into that one little Tweet, but we will hold off. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with Dave Zirin’s take on the whole thing: “I know that if Ted Cruz was cheerleading my actions, I’d strongly reconsider what the hell I was doing.”
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . college athletes’ path toward unionization? “The Next Frontier in College Sports: The Unionization of College Athletes,” by Ross Dellenger in Sports Illustrated (September 29, 2021).
. . . the Oracle workers strike and its place in a broader strike wave that’s crashing over the U.S.? “Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks,” by Michael Sainato in The Guardian (October 1, 2021).
. . . the culture of abuse in international women’s soccer? “The NWSL scandal is horrific but women’s soccer is rife with sexual misconduct,” by Ciara McCormack in The Guardian (October 3, 2021).
. . . the NBA’s anti-vax debacle? “Why LeBron James Shouldn’t Cover for Vaccine Refusers,” by Jemele Hill in The Atlantic (October 1, 2021).
. . . the lingering impact of the NFL’s race-norming practices? “‘Race-norming’ kept former NFL players from dementia diagnoses. Their families want answers,” by Will Hobson in The Washington Post (September 29, 2021).