Some Signs of Movement as MLS Strike Deadline Looms

It may not seem like it, but there were positive signs today that the MLS labor dispute may be headed toward a resolution that would avert the strike deadline looming just 4 days away.

An anonymous player representative told ESPN's Jeff Carlisle that the union are now seeking "flexibility in player movement" instead of outright free agency. "We know we can't have true free agency within single entity," the player said.

It was the first public conciliatory note from the players in weeks, and it comes after a string of public statements by the owners in the last few days that were clearly part of a concerted strategy of bravado and intimidation. (More on that here.)

This movement toward a compromise by the union on the key issue of free agency is positive not only because it shows that the union continues to bargain in good faith but also because free agency is a major sticking point for the league bosses who view it as a direct assault on their monopolistic "single entity" system, which they have fought so hard to prop up.

The fact that union reps are willing to move on this key issue bodes well for a compromise, and there is still plenty of room for a final deal that improves player rights and freedom of movement without gutting the owners' precious single entity model.

Then there was this positive statement from Seattle Sounders defender Taylor Graham, although it "definitely" falls in the "duh" category: "Our goal is not to strike ... It's definitely not in the players' interests for the league not to survive; and it's definitely not in the league's interest for that to happen."

One source told El Luchador by email: "We don't want to strike, but we will if we have to. We're hopeful that in the coming days, we can find some room for agreement."

There was positive movement on the League's' part as well, as owners demonstrated a modicum of decency by agreeing to pay for almost 2 dozen players to fly to Washington to participate in this last round of talks.

Union stalwart Pat Onstad told Jeff Carlisle: "I think [the league] wants a representative from each club to be there, and frankly, so do we. I think everybody needs to be there. It's an important decision for both sides."

But don't get too excited.  Lest you prematurely conclude that owners have any respect at all for fans or players, check out what the league's most powerful owner and lead douche bag, LA Galaxy owner Tim Leiweke, had to say: "Even if it means that we go a year without soccer, so be it ... We will wait as long as it takes. We will never, ever agree to change the system." That last sentence is not the kind of thing mediators like to hear around the  bargaining table. "Never, ever change" is more like the type of thing you typically hear from teenagers and tea baggers.

Meanwhile, MLS Commissioner Don Garber continued to ignore an invitation from fan group MLS Solidarity to appear in an open debate over the labor impasse on World Football Daily.

Finally, the players made clear that while they are willing to move on free agency, they will not be had. Chicago Fire defender and union rep. C.J. Brown told Fox Soccer Channel: "If they don't want to budge on anything, then it's a done deal, we're striking."

COME my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,  
We must march my darlings, We must bear the brunt of danger,  
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Rhetoric in MLS Labor Strife Heats Up: Owners Piss Themselves

The war of rhetoric continued to heat up today just 5 days short of the strike deadline, with MLS owners rattling their sabers, putting lifts in their shoes, and fluffing up the comb-overs on their puny, greedy heads.

"I just hope the players understand the implication of the threats they're making to strike because if they do in fact go on strike, then that forces the owners to do something very aggressive and very different," Real Salt Lake owner Dave Checketts told the Desert News.

Having been exposed in the national soccer community as frauds, the owners clearly have calculated that fear-mongering  is the only tool available to them in their quest to force the players into submitting to another collective bargaining agreement that holds the latter as indentured servants.

"I've always said that 'MLS' stands for Major League Slavery," said World Football Daily's Steven Cohen.

Just picture Checketts stuttering, sweating and blinking rapidly as he says the following: "I just came from a meeting with several owners and the commissioner down here in Los Angeles, and we know exactly what we'll do. These are all owners who've been in the NBA, they've been in the NHL, some of them own Major League Baseball teams even today. We know what we'll do. We have a plan if the players strike."

If that "plan" involves bringing in scabs to play "games" owners think "fans" will pay money to watch, then they are higher than a Blues Traveler fan at Bonarroo.

Lest you conclude that Checketts is a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, witness Seattle Sounders Kingpin Joe Roth's hysterical statement to the Seattle Times: “From an entertainment standpoint, we haven’t made enough of an imprint on the national psyche," he said as he pissed himself. "I don’t think there will be a national outcry like with the NFL if somehow we wouldn’t be out there for a year – which would be terrible. Everyone would lose their jobs. We would all lose our franchises. And that would be that."

But as LA Galaxy, Everton and USMNT star Landon Donovan pointed out this week to ESPN, the players are not trying to destroy the economics of the league.  Said Donovan: "I think we've made it clear from the beginning that we're not into the idea of bankrupting the league and asking for tons of monetary increases. We just want basic rights other players around the world get."

"There are realities to the business that we're in and unfortunately for too long the business has been one-sided," Donovan continued. "We need basic rights if we're going to continue playing. We want rights that are afforded to other players in other countries around the world that we don't have here."

From the earliest days of the labor movement, the first tactic owners consistently have employed is fear. Early 20th-century coal operators smeared strikers with accusations that foreign communists were behind their efforts to achieve fair wages and working conditions, using words like "insurrection" and "Bolshevik revolution" to describe strike threats. Oftentimes, physical violence accompanied the heated rhetoric. Today, MLS owners have only words as empty as their stadiums will be if they try to stage scab matches.

As Jimmy Reed said: "Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call? Big boss man, you ain't so big, you just talk, and that's all."