Every league structures their cap differently, but the logic is effectively the same: limit total spending on players, then penalize teams who go “over the cap.” What this creates is a hard ceiling on labor costs while revenue and team valuations soar. Billionaire owners protect their profit margins, while players compete for a shrinking slice of the pie.

But it’s not just “stars vs. the fringe.” The biggest victims of this system are the middle-tier veterans. The players good enough to contribute to a team, but not great enough for max contracts. In a salary cap world, it becomes more cost-effective for teams and the savviest General Managers to cut aging veterans and replace them with younger players on cheap rookie deals. This is most obvious in the NFL, where rookie contracts are essential to cap management. A good quarterback making $1 million a year on his rookie deal is huge bargain for teams. A solid linebacker entering his first open market negotiations? A “cap liability.”

Fans tend to call it “Salary Cap gymnastics” when their teams GM’s start cutting or trading players, restructuring contracts, and bringing in rookies to replace players who are coming up on their first big payday. This is what leads to major roster turnover to the point fans aren’t connected to players the same way they used to be able to develop relationships for years with whole teams. because of managements crude negotiations tactics players have to often fend for themselves and use any means to secure their living which often leads fans to blame players for giving up on the team when in reality it’s the management turning everything into a labor battleground.

These middle strata of players form the backbone of team culture, locker room cohesion, and union membership, but under this systems logic of efficiency, they become expendable labor. Their logic is clear: use the cap to pit the young against the old, the stars against the rest, and keep the workforce fragmented and replaceable. So next time you hear that “teams need the cap to compete,” ask: compete for what? Not championships. It’s a competition to control labor, and the ones losing the most are the rank and file and the fans.

The post The Illusion of “Parity”: How the Salary Cap and Luxury Tax Hurt Veteran Players first appeared on Labor Today.

“It’s a great thing for everyone in the state of Alabama because we’re not behind anymore — we’re moving forward,” said NFI employee Ryan Masters, a member of the organizing committee for the Anniston plant. “It is going to change my whole entire life.” Unions are now succeeding at the company in large part because NFI, after a lengthy battle, agreed not to oppose them.

The contract comes amid an ambitious push by the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) to organize foreign carmakers’ southern plants and reverse decades of membership decline.

NFI workers and organizers hope their victory will help boost such organizing efforts. “We’d like to set the tone that just because this is Alabama, you can’t pay us pennies,” said William Hunt, a member of CWA’s bargaining committee. It’s also a win in labor’s campaign to guarantee job quality in the transition to a greener economy.

Waves of unionization at NFI plants were the result of a years-long campaign by workers, labor advocates, and progressive non-profits, including Jobs to Move America (JMA). Pushing NFI with settlements promising various workplace changes. Including avenues for handling discrimination complaints and working with nonprofits to boost hiring from marginalized groups. NFI also agreed to not campaign against unions at its seven unorganized US plants. Instead, it would recognize unions and engage in collective bargaining.

This time, “we didn’t have to sit through all that crap, so it made it easier for everyone to decide on their own what they wanted,” said Masters, who’s worked at the plant for 10 years. On January 31, a local pastor counted union cards and determined the majority of the workforce had signed up with the union.

The post Workers at New Flyer Ratify First Contract with IUE-CWA first appeared on Labor Today.