The "Zhou Qi incident" has intensified, and now it has reached the point where Zhou Qi would rather quit the new season and argue with his old owner Xinjiang team.
There have been too many elaborations in recent days, due to the complexity of the league situation and the positions of both sides, this matter is obviously not something that can be cleared in two words, but it is worth mentioning that many related comments have mentioned a key word, that is, "players' union".
Because of the CBA's current player salary management method, and even the CBA now decides on almost all matters of the relevant meetings, the participants are members of the CBA board of directors - the so-called CBA board, simply put, the CBA company's equity is owned by the league's 20 teams, each team holds 5% of the shares, and enjoys the same rights and interests when the CBA company convenes the board.
In recent years, after the reform of the CBA system, all the big things and small things, such as how many rounds the league should play, whether to change the foreign aid system, the precautions for the resumption of the game after the epidemic, etc., are all approved by the board of directors, and the CBA company will release news to the society. Such a system ensures that the interests of small and medium-sized clubs in the league can be guaranteed, but the problem is that the salary management system, which is related to the vital interests of players, is not involved in the discussion.
The voice of the players can not be expressed from beginning to end, all they can do is to abide by the rules, and the irrationality of them has finally led to the outbreak of the "Zhou Qi Incident" today, so public opinion and fans have remembered that NBA players on the other side of the ocean have a solid backing when they encounter similar problems, that is, the NBPA, which is commonly known as the "NBA Players Union".
Today, the players' union is already famous, and nine out of ten fans who watch the NBA have heard their name. Friends who pay attention to it on a daily basis may already know that C.J. McCollum recently succeeded Chris Paul and will become the new president of the players' union.
This organization, which represents all the players in the NBA, has gained momentum in recent years, and every time the validity of the NBA's last collective bargaining agreement is approaching, they will start labor negotiations with the owners of 30 teams. To some extent, the players' unions can be described as victories at the negotiating table, and player salaries account for an increasingly high proportion of the total income of the NBA. But the Ninth Floor Stand is a source of dirt, and the NBA players' union is by no means as powerful as it was in the beginning — their story begins as far back as 1954.
The NBA in the 1950s was still in a fog, with team owners struggling to make ends meet, and players experiencing many unimaginable slices of life, the most outrageous of which was the Baltimore Bullets in the 1954-55 season.
The Bullets were one of the worst teams in the NBA at the time, with 32 wins and 110 losses in the previous two seasons combined, "because our coach was a drunk and he didn't care about the team at all." Paul Hoffman, then a player and coach, gritted his teeth when he talked about the memory, he didn't even know every night if the real manager would show up, and once he was absent, he had to temporarily command the team.
The irresponsible coach is called Claire Bee, the legendary coach of American college basketball, the inventor of 1-3-1 joint defense, he is not only the coach of the Bullets, but also the general manager, and claire's coaching has become absent-minded when the boss can't throw a few dollars into the team.
He once tried to generate income, pulling the team to Japan to play exhibition games in the offseason; he would also take bootlegs and stuff several of his former disciples from Long Island University into the team. But as soon as he gets to the game, he may be lying at home drinking too much again.
The Baltimore Bullets, after playing only 14 games in the 1954-55 season, declared bankruptcy, and on the day the team disbanded, they were so poor that they could not afford to pay for the trip back to Baltimore. The bullet became the last team in NBA history to quit directly due to bankruptcy, and such a bizarre encounter deeply touched one person: the Boston Celtics' ace guard, Bob Cousy.
The dissolution of the Bullets quickly led Toussi to think of a question: if the factory went out of business, the workers would suffer; now that the team was out of business, what would happen to the rest of the players' livelihood problems?
At that time, the NBA players themselves were paid meager salaries, so how could they be born when they suddenly ran out of food? Kushi slapped his head on the head and decided to stand up and lead the establishment of a players' organization that would be able to represent the players for the benefit of everyone. This kind of thing can certainly not be done by one person, and Kusi immediately began to contact the helper, of course, the communication method he used was also very contemporary: writing letters.
As he plays, Cush's thinking is very clear, each team he only needs to contact one person, and this person has enough voice in the team, that can directly string all the players together, so the Philadelphia Warriors' Paul Argin, Knicks' Carl Braun, Rochester Royals' Bob Davis, Fort Wayne Pistons' Andy Phillip, Lakers' Jim Pollard, Syracuse Nationals' Dolf Sheis and Milwaukee Hawks Don Sandager all received a handwritten letter from Kusi. Even for the Bullets, Paul Hoffman, as a player and coach, was invited.
Except for andy Phillip of the Pistons, who was strongly blocked by the boss, the other recipients voted on behalf of their teammates, and Bob Cousy, who had the confidence, quickly rushed into the office of Celtic boss Walter Brown, "I told Brown that in my opinion he is the best manager in the league, but I think the players should also have the right to speak up at the negotiating table." So the players needed a representative and I was the right person, so don't blame me," Cush recalled, "thanks to Brown, he blessed me, then we're off." ”
At the 1955 All-Star Game, Bob Cush, who had been elected president of the NBA Players' Union, met with then-league president Maurice Portoloff and made him a 7-point request for NBA players at the time, the first of which was to pay the Baltimore Bullets players who were owed wages.
Other requirements include: no more than 20 exhibition matches per year for players, and the relevant income players should have a share; the player's salary should be changed from 12 to 10 installments, so that players who are laid off during the season can get more money; in addition to media interviews and charity events, players should be paid $25 each time when they attend other public events.
You read that right, if the players are pulled to the platform, selling goods, and advertising by the team owner, the players' union refuses to prostitute themselves, and they demand that they have to give $25 each time.
However, as the spokesman for the bosses, Potolov did not take Kusi's proposal seriously at all, and all other proposals made by the players' union were rejected, except for paying the Bullets players a two-week paycheck. The league did have too good reasons to refuse when the bosses weren't making money, and Portolov met with Cusi separately two weeks later, but the end result was to inform him that the NBA did not recognize the NBPA as a union with any effect...
But Kushi didn't give up, and in 1957 he made two big moves: one was to inform the NBA that he might organize a player strike, and the other was to contact the American Federation of Labor and the Confederation of Industrial Unions to discuss the possibility of the NBPA joining the largest union organization in the United States. Faced with these two heavy blows, the NBA Board finally made a compromise, acknowledging the existence of the NBPA and acceding to some of their demands, such as:
A $7-a-day stipend plus some transportation allowance; an increase in 1958 NBA playoff spots; no more exhibition games for three days before the start of the season; and no more regular players can check in for a new season than four weeks before the start of the regular season.
Cush was the great founder of the NBA players' union, but he announced his resignation in 1958, handing over the baton to Green Army friend Tom Heinthorn, who was only 23 years old.
In the years that followed, labor and management were at peace, and the time fast forwarded to the 1963-64 season, when the new league president, J. Walter Kennedy, took office, but the players soon realized that the new president had not fulfilled many of his pre-appointment promises, especially the retirement pension that had been promised to the players was completely gone.
On January 14, 1964, the blizzard hit Boston, and the disgruntled NBA superstars met in such weather conditions, it was reported that Boston was passing through the largest snowstorm in history, and the road area snow even reached more than 1 meter deep, but the NBA still insisted on calling these stars together, because the upcoming NBA All-Star Game in Boston would be the first time in history to broadcast live to the united States through ABC's public signal.
As Bob Cusi did 10 years ago, the All-Star was a good time for players to meet with NBA management, and near 6 p.m., Tom Heinthorn, along with several other important representatives of the players' union, Bob Petit, Bill Russell, and Lenny Wilkens, with the help of legal counsel, made a request to Kennedy that a player pension plan must be made in writing and a series of improvements to other working conditions. But Kennedy on the other end of the phone still refused without hesitation.
So, the operation officially began, and the four All-Star players who attended the meeting set off separately and began to look for several other superstars who were going to play in the All-Star on the same day, and they were about to launch a "military advice". Heinthorn quickly found Lakers superstar Elgin Baylor, and Baylor immediately saw the intentions and voted in favor: If you want to boycott the game, now is the best time.
"As long as someone does it, Jerry West and I will support them because the NBA players at that time really didn't make money, and a lot of players had to work another job in the summer. Perhaps the request we are making now is only the first step, only a small step, but it is a necessary step. Elgin Baylor wrote in his autobiography, but he also added that the first all-star of the first all-American live broadcast did just that, and we may also be playing with fire.
In the end, the All-Stars gathered in the locker room of the stadium, and after counting on the spot, 9 All-Stars agreed to boycott the game, and when the President Kennedy came to the stadium at 8:25, he was completely shocked, and he never expected that the players would use this trick to fight him.
Kennedy quickly went to communicate with the All-Stars for a 20-minute conversation, patting himself on the chest and saying to Heinthorne, "Friends, I can't contact all the bosses right now, but I promise you, what you want will be good." ”
But the players, who have accumulated some experience in the struggle, will not easily trust the words of the capitalists, Heinthorne remembers that there were some team owners who wanted to rush in, "but we let the security guards guard the door, and some bosses even threatened that we would be banned forever." "The scene was in a state of collapse, everything was in chaos, and the president Kennedy, who had just been in office for his first year, had an incident like this, which was a huge test for him himself, but he finally found all the bosses and a few minutes later, he returned to the players' dressing room.
"Guys, I guarantee that the bosses have explicitly agreed to your pension plan and other improvements, and now I ask you to play this game with all your heart."
This time, it's time to test the judgment of the stars, will Kennedy lie to them again? Everyone made a collective vote, 18 of the 20 players agreed to play immediately, their judgment was correct, the NBA officially recognized the status of the players' union from this day, and in the following years of dialogue with it, the day in the All-Star alone 26 points, 14 rebounds and 8 assists, won the MVP Oscar Robertson became the next helmsman of the union.
In the blink of an eye, the NBA players' union has been established for 67 years, and 57 years have passed since the snowy Boston night, after such a long struggle, Paul and his partners have been able to continuously improve the rights and interests of players in the past few years, of course, this is also closely related to the NBA as a commercial league more and more profitable, only when the bosses are making more and more money, players can stand up straight when negotiating, such as in a new meeting in 2020, the pension that the superstars fought hard for. In the NBA, it has been clearly stipulated that if a player ends his career due to injury, not only will he receive the full guaranteed salary, but the additional compensation from the insurance company will also increase from $312,000 to $2.5 million.
But if it weren't for Bob Cousy's $25 ask for business activities, how could there be $2.5 million in retirement compensation today?