ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606210035
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Supreme Court gave business a victory Thursday, ruling in a National Football League dispute that unionized workers cannot sue employer groups that impose salaries after a bargaining impasse.
Federal labor law shields employer groups from such antitrust lawsuits, the court ruled 8-1. The decision applies to professional sports as well as multiple-employer groups in other industries such as construction and retail trade.
The justices upheld a lower court decision that threw out a $30.3 million antitrust damage award to NFL rookies.
Allowing workers to sue over salaries imposed by employer groups after impasse ``threatens to introduce instability and uncertainty into the collective bargaining process,'' Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court.
Robin Conrad of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the decision as ``applying a basic time-honored labor law practice to the concept of multi-employer bargaining.''
James Quinn, an attorney for unionized professional football, basketball and hockey players, said the decision could lead players to decertify their unions so they can file antitrust lawsuits.
Or, he said, ``It may lead to more labor dislocation - I mean strikes - and that's too bad.'' In other decisions Thursday, the court:
The NFL case involves the league's 1989 proposal to pay $1,000 a week to rookie players on team developmental squads. Ordinarily, professional football players' salaries are set through individual negotiation.
After the players' union rejected the proposal, the team owners declared an impasse and imposed the salary cap.
The players filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit and won $30.3 million in damages. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the award, saying the players could sue the league only if they gave up their union.
The players appealed, but the Supreme Court ruled for the NFL.
Union contracts are exempt from antitrust law because they are covered by federal labor law. Under Thursday's decision, the exemption continues when employer groups impose salaries after bargaining has reached an impasse.
``Employers, however, are not completely free at impasse to act independently,'' Breyer wrote. ``The duty to bargain survives; employers must stand ready to resume collective bargaining.''
The players had argued that shielding the owners from antitrust lawsuits gives them an incentive to force bargaining to an impasse so they can impose their conditions.
But the NFL's attorneys said that instead of suing, the football players could have asked the National Labor Relations Board to rule that the league had committed an unfair labor practice.Lawyers for players' unions pointed to the 1994-95 baseball strike as an example of the disruption that can occur when sports leagues are exempt from antitrust laws. Major league baseball has a blanket antitrust exemption, which Congress considered narrowing after the strike.
Justice John Paul Stevens, the lone dissenter, said workers should be allowed to sue ``when their employers unite to undertake anti-competitive action that causes them direct harm.''
Breyer's opinion was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB