Sunday At Last, Sunday Football! And It Comes with a Union Label

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Labor


http://blog.workingamerica.org/2014/09/07/sunday-at-last-sunday-football-and-it-comes-with-a-union-label/


The first Sunday of the NFL season is here—the world champion Seattle Seahawks kicked off the action Thursday with a 36–16 win over the Green Bay Packers. But while we are settling into our recliners and couches or at our favorite sports bar, thousands of union members, on and off the field, are making sure the games run as smoothly as Peyton Manning’s two-minute drill.

From Soldier Field in Chicago to “Jerry World” in Dallas and at stadiums around the country, nearly 1,700 members (active and practice squad players) of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) are seeing their first action of the 2014 season. The other folks on the field—the men in the striped shirts—are members of the NFL Referees Association.

The announcers, camera operators, technicians, field workers and other hardworking folks bringing the game to your flat-screened football cave or favorite bar include members of SAG-AFTRA, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA), Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Laborers (LIUNA).

For the fans who head for the concessions in many stadiums, their hot dogs will be served and their beer will be drawn by union members, including the 25,000 UNITE HERE members who work at some 58 NFL and other major league stadiums and arenas.

If you didn’t get a chance earlier this year, check out how one Seahawk fan and IBEW Local 191 member transformed himself into the large, green and angry SeaHulk—far more frightening than the Seattle secondary. Our friend David Groves at the Washington State Labor Council’s (WSCL’s) The Stand reported in February the story of how the local area contractors and others came together and raised the funds to make sure the SeaHulk (aka Tim Froemke) and his crew of body painters made it to the Super Bowl. Groves also pointed out that the Seahawks players are affiliates of the WSCL.

Check out this handy list of union-made products below so you can plan NFL Sunday watch parties that are all union, all the way:

[TBF]

1. The players are union too

https://www.nflplayers.com/

These guys may make a hunk of change for a few years, but it is not a lifetime career and many face terrible injuries.