NBA looks for help from federal mediator
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director George H. Cohen talks with the media in Washington after a round football labor negotiations with the NFL and the NFL players' association in March. Credit: AP
The impasse between the NBA and its players union will be brought before a federal mediator to attempt to bring the two sides to an agreement.
"We are working on scheduling a meeting for early next week," NBA spokesman Tim Frank said.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service contacted both parties to offer assistance in the ongoing lockout, which reached its 105th day Thursday. George H. Cohen, the director of the FMCS, who has mediated several high-profile disputes, including the NFL lockout last spring, will oversee the mediation.
It is expected that the FMCS will meet individually with representatives from both sides as early as Monday in Manhattan. Then both will be brought together for a mediation session at Cohen's office in Washington D.C. The mediation is nonbinding, which means whatever Cohen decides is unenforceable. But it could, at the very least, put the sides on the right path toward an agreement.
The sides are at odds over one major issue -- the salary cap system. The NBA has backed off pushing a hard cap, but has proposed a "soft" cap system that has such heavy restrictions (i.e.: higher luxury tax penalties) that the union believes it would act like a hard cap. The owners have also proposed to cut the players' share of revenue from 57 percent in the previous deal to 47 percent. The players will only concede a drop to 53 percent. Another disagreement involves contract lengths.
While Cohen, who was appointed by President Obama, has a successful history in sports law (he helped end the 1995 Major League Baseball strike) it should be noted that after Cohen met at length with the NFL and the NFLPA in February to no avail, the NFLPA opted to decertify. And in February 2005, the NHL and NHLPA agreed to meet with the FMCS, only to have the league cancel the entire season three days later.
Still, in an interview with WFAN yesterday afternoon, union executive director Billy Hunter said he is "eternally optimistic" about an eventual resolution for the NBA. He even pointed to the league's most popular regular season date, Christmas Day, as a possible date when the game will return to the court.
"I would assume that the lockout continues, at the latest, we should have something done by -- I would assume that the owners would probably have enough by Christmas," Hunter said.
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