Chris Young/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press
Donald Fehr, head of the N.H.L. Players' Association, prevailed legally in baseball labor disputes.
Last week was a dismal one for Donald Fehr and the N.H.L. Players' Association, and not just because the owners flatly rejected the union's offer to settle the N.H.L. lockout. For the first time since negotiations began last summer, public opinion seemed to have shifted: many fans, who had been blaming Commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners for the impasse, started to blame Fehr and the players.
Yet none of that is likely to sway Fehr, perhaps North America's most effective union leader over the past three decades. He has drawn fans' wrath before, but his accomplishments are enormous. As head of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1983 to 2009, Fehr thwarted efforts to impose a salary cap and kept players' salaries high. In three years with the N.H.L. Players' Association, he repaired a hopelessly fractured union and readied it for confrontation with the owners.
"Players understand that this is something in which they all have to hang together," Fehr said. "You can paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: if we don't hang together, we're going to hang separately."
Fehr is something of an anachronism: an ardent trade unionist in an era when the power of unions outside of sports is shrinking.
"Don Fehr is an enormously bright and committed lawyer, and a liberal person of the left," said Fay Vincent, the baseball commissioner from 1989 to 1992. "He is very committed to using collective bargaining to improve the conditions and economic well-being of his constituents."
Fehr's politics stand in sharp contrast to those of the N.H.L.'s United States-based owners, who as a group have donated more heavily to Republican candidates and causes than their N.F.L. and N.B.A. counterparts.
Despite a public reputation for combativeness, Fehr also draws praise from former adversaries for honesty, integrity and a calm, businesslike demeanor.
"Donald Fehr was a perfectly honorable person — I don't think he ever lied to me," said Richard Ravitch, who negotiated for the baseball owners in the two years that preceded the 1994-95 strike. "He never lost his temper; in fact, I thought he was a cold fish. But he was very honorable and very straightforward. A man of few words, even if his favorite word was no."
Vincent called Fehr "absolutely straight and totally honest." He added, "I don't think his worst enemies have ever found him lying to them or misleading them."
In Canada, fans angry with the union for not accepting the owners' demand for a 12 percent pay cut last week called radio stations to speculate that Fehr was dictating a militant stance to the players. But no players have suggested that is happening.
"One of Don's core principles is the need to appropriately and accurately reflect the consensus of the players, and that leadership comes from the ranks, not from the top down," said Gene Orza, Fehr's longtime general counsel with the baseball players union, who still confers regularly with Fehr. "Your position-taking has to be supported by a large, large portion of the players."
Orza said he was not surprised by fans' accusations. "There are two things they've been saying for years in baseball," he said. "There's never enough left-handed pitching, and the union is always leading the players around by the nose."
N.H.L. fans seemed to dread Fehr's arrival on the hockey scene in 2009, when he was asked to repair a players union torn by internal squabbling after accepting a 24 percent pay cut and a salary cap in the 2004-5 lockout. The union had gone through four leaders in four years. Like many baseball fans, hockey fans saw Fehr as responsible for the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series.
But what is often forgotten is that the strike ended by court order, when Judge Sonia Sotomayor ruled that the owners had engaged in unfair labor practices. The old contract was reinstated and, legally at least, Fehr and the union were vindicated.
That followed other legal victories by Fehr over the owners, who were found to have illegally colluded by refraining from bidding against one another for free agents.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Donald Fehr Holds Tight to His Composure and His Principles
Dengan url
https://suporterfanatikos.blogspot.com/2012/10/donald-fehr-holds-tight-to-his.html?m=0
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Donald Fehr Holds Tight to His Composure and His Principles
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Donald Fehr Holds Tight to His Composure and His Principles
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar