Do you have any evidence that the NFLPA negotiated issues in the surveys, were unhappy and then release them as a later resort?
I’m not aware if any such negotiation. What are the “many lanes” they exhausted around survey results that failed?
The mere fact that the NFLPA has existed since 1956 is a paper trailer enough of existing negotiations, something that wasn't even recognized by the NFL until 1968, showing that it took 12 years to get the asses of the ownership to respect the players. From the get-go, this partnership was marqueed by owners being stingy.
"The owners, for their part, were immediately antagonistic to the concept of a players' union — a position epitomized when Miller, then an assistant coach with the Cleveland Browns, was removed from the team's annual photo at the insistence of head coach and general manager Paul Brown." (Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/26/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-erased-labor-leader.html)
"Miller and other union founders were taken aback by Paul Brown's staunch view that "it was both just and necessary that management could cut, trade, bench, blackball, and own in perpetuity anyone and everyone that it wanted" (Source: Piascik, Andy (2007). The Best Show in Football: The 1946–1955 Cleveland Browns. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58979-571-6.)
The lanes have been exhausted for
decades. If you want my honest opinion, the NFLPA could do so much more in the form of public pressure, and should. These are the same people that want
you to pay for their stadiums, something that has been proven time and time again to not actually benefit their locales in a majority of cases.l
Of course the impact of releasing a report of players composing about the conditions under which they make their millions has dubious effectiveness. What do you think it clearly accomplishes?
You're not saying anything to prove its efficacy is dubious. There is substantial evidence of public pressure working for organized workers, the onus here is on anyone who wants to prove otherwise. These are years-long fights that are multi-pronged.
They are in a collectively bargained partnership. If whining to the public about conditions is how they think they can gain power, they are doing it wrong.
There are three things I am left to assume here: you've not engaged in long union struggles, or if you did, you weren't really participating with your co-workers. Or, you just happen to have an employer that did the responsible thing and fairly bargain with you. If it's the last part, that's the difference here: the owners of the NFL have rarely - if ever - acted in good faith to their workers.
