The NHL

[Cartman]

When unionists demand higher salaries and benefits, the response by right wingers is usually something along the lines of "let the market decide". However, as the NHL collective agreement deadline looms, free market thinkers must be scratching their heads. This time, the players' union wants a free market system where the most talented workers go to the highest bidders while the owners do not! A free market system is only supported by businesses when workers earn relatively low wages and not when they earn relatively high wages. This goes to show you that generally speaking, businesses are not really interested in market PRINCIPLES per se, only in any system that guarantees them greater profit. That is why they do not discuss a player salary cap AND an owners' profit cap which would mutually ensure the survival of the season.

[August1991]

This goes to show you that generally speaking, businesses are not really interested in market PRINCIPLES per se, only in any system that guarantees them greater profit.

Your realization that people seek their own best interest stultifies me. Now, why do you apply this radical idea to business people and not unions?

However, as the NHL collective agreement deadline looms, free market thinkers must be scratching their heads.

What competes with the NHL? If you ran the whole NHL as a business, what kind of teams would you want to have? Some rich, strong teams or all teams more or less the same? Which scenario would likely generate more fan interest?

Last point: Why do uneducated, illiterate sports players earn millions while elementary schoolteachers barely manage? Is this proof that western society has lost its moral compass?

Sorry, but I found your post foolishly naive.

[Cartman]

Sorry, but I found your post foolishly naive.

Ouch.

I do not apply this notion to unions because many of them have become movements that support a wide variety of groups in society...those less fortunate. This is not self-interest.

Maybe I am naive, but I always thought that right wing supporters of the free market actually had consistent principles. People are moral to the extent that they are social. From your post, I get the impression that you believe that there are no such things as societies, just groups of individuals. I would hope that we are building a society in Canada.

As well, I am left with the impression that you support unions if they are simply acting in self-interest?

[Big Blue Machine]

Why the heck do hockey players have unions. That's silly.

[caesar]

All hockey players are not uneducated and dumb. Remem ber Montreals great goalie; Ken Dryden. He is now a Minister in Paul Martin's new cabinet. He is well educated.

Most are certainly not illiterate. However, I do think many are over paid. I do believe they earn more than a school teacher. Hockey is a rough game and leaves many with serious life long injuries and expensive denture/teeth replacements. Teachers are not that important. I did well in school; but I learned whatever I needed to know by scanning my test books. All teachers ever did was to mark my papers. I do realize not all people learn by my preferred methods.

[playfullfellow]

I don't really see where you come off caesar suggesting that a hockey player is more valuable than a teacher. I am sorry we are not all as briliant as you were in school and get a nice job at a cleaners. So according to your theory, someone who works a hazardous job should make millions every year. I like your thinking in that sense, sure would make the construction and oil field workers in this area happy.

[kimmy]

I have read that the average salary for an NHL hockey player is over $1.8 million US!

Even if one buys the argument that hockey players have short careers so they need to earn more money to compensate, a normal person earning $40,000 US a year (that would be a very good salary by Canadian standards, right?) would have to work from age 20 all the way to retirement to earn as much as an average hockey player earns in just one season!

So, I don't think I will worry too much about their welfare. I think they've got things under control.

-kimmy

[udawg]

I like your thinking in that sense, sure would make the construction and oil field workers in this area happy

I don't know where you live, but where *I* live, oil field workers are the richest around. I live in the middle of the Saskatchewan oil patch, and I heard somewhere that my little town has the highest number of millionaires per capita in all of Canada... I don't doubt it. Even the most basic jobs in the oil field bring in usually 30 dollars per hour starting wage...and if you last past the first week, you're bound to make more. The work is hard, dangerous, the hours long... and the pay REALLY good.

As for hockey players... yeah, they make too much. Teachers... yeah, they don't make enough. Still, I hate it when teachers complain about their salaries. Starting salaries for any teacher around here is about 10 grand higher than the combined salaries of my parents. While they were struggling to keep me in clothes through high school, I listened to my teachers complain about the salaries that were letting them buy new SUVs every 3 years. Maybe teachers are underappreciated and underpaid for the job they do... but it's not like they're starving.

[Cartman]

I agree that teachers are vocal and are doing well, but they also take a measure of risk. Some parents are more than willing to blame teachers for their kids problems (which are often caused by poor parenting in the first place). My wife has both management and education degrees and unfortunately, it is just not worth it to teach. In her management position, she earns more, has much better benefits, time off, flexibility and little risk. We are seriously considering educating from home. It is sad that we are letting the public system fall apart.

[caesar]

Playful;; I did not suggest that hockey players were worth that kind of money; just probably worth more than a teacher. Some teachers are great and worth more than their salaries. Many more just do the minimum required and are not worth diddly squat.

Actors and singers are very overpaid; at least the most successful; which are often not the best.

I believe oil field workers and construction workers are usually well compensated for their limited skill jobs. Hopefully they work for companies that observe all safety measures.I didn't miss your sarcasm about my job (how did you know) but I am from a different generation; a mother who opted to raise children instead of work. I am in my 60s. I do regret not opting for a career but I am quite happy with the results from raising my kids.

[I miss Reagan]

I don't know why you're attacking right wingers. This is precisely why right wingers hate unions. Because they end up making outrageous demands. The NHL is a company and needs to remain viable. It is in competition with 3 other leagues, 2 of which perform far better than the NHL. The NHL needs to keep its costs down and keep its shareholders (the owners) happy.

[Cartman]

The right suggests that the free market (free from any intervention) is ideal. Let the invisible hand of capitalism do its job and everyone will be better served. The left maintains that intervention (redistribution) is needed to curb excesses of greed in a modern industrial economy. Cooperation is preferable to competition.

If we use the current NHL conflict as a microcosm of society, we see that the owners (free market, right wing thinkers) do not want a free market because it is now serving the players well. This is a completely hypocritical role reversal and demonstrates that a free market based upon greed is not ideal. The owners are using so-called antiquated left wing interventionist thinking while the players have adopted free market economics. Do you not find this extremely ironic?

The free market is supposed to be the core of right wing thinking. This very unique conflict suggests that it has less to do with consistent principles of fairness for everyone and more to do with greed and maintaining the unequal status quo.

[August1991]

Cooperation is preferable to competition.

Prices determined in a free market are examples of cooperation, not competition.

The owners are using so-called antiquated left wing interventionist thinking while the players have adopted free market economics.

I can't speak for the NHL owners but it seems to me that it makes sense to have teams with good players not concentrated on a few teams able to pay high salaries. By having teams of roughly equal ability, games are more dramatic and fan interest is greater.

The NHL is the corporation and individual teams are branch offices. The competition arrives from all the other sources of entertainment on a Saturday night. How would you organize such a corporation if the purpose is to maximize shareholder's value?

[Cartman]

In this case, the NHL is the equivalent of the state. It has a limited measure of power to regulate both owners and workers, but it acts largely on behalf/behest of the owners who have the real power.

I am surprised that only IMR and August have reacted strongly to the main theme of this post. I thought that all of the right wingers would come out strongly in favour of the supporters of free market principles which, in this case, are the players! I betcha that Harper, as an ardent neo-liberal, would remain consistent on this one. After all, he has said that you cannot have a free market just for business and not for workers and he admirably and clearly came out against "corporate welfare bums". Any bets to the contrary (i.e. Harper)?

[playfullfellow]

I didn't miss your sarcasm about my job (how did you know) but I am from a different generation; a mother who opted to raise children instead of work.

I didn't mean to be insulting in anyway, I guess it came across the wrong way. As for how I know, you mentioned in an earlier post about working across the street from a private school in a cleaners. I may be just a construction worker, but I don't have limited skills, I can read quite well and have a fairly decent memory. I do applaud you for being a stay at home Mom, we did the same until our kids were in school.

Anyways, back to the topic. There are plenty of professions that are way over paid for the type of work that is required and on the flip flop, many underpaid people. In the case of sports stars and stars in general, it is the publics own fault for falling into the hero worship trap. If people quit spending their hard earned money on expensive tickets and the latest sports fashions, maybe the prices would drop and hence, the wages would have to follow suit.

[caesar]

but My son has already been paying for season tickets and he takes his momma quite often. It is ridiculous price for a hockey game. I think we used to pay about $12 per seat not that long ago. Now if you want a good seat you need to be long term season ticket holders. We certainly wouldn't keep paying these prices if we don't have any of the top players.

The construction industry will take a hit in wages, too; if Campbell gets his way. He would like to get rid of all unions.

I, do have two minds about unions. Sometimes they are needed to enable a worker to get a fair wage. Sometimes too much organized union is involved rather than the workers. I do like free market that allows good workers to get better pay and advancements than those who just drift along.

I think that I would like to see the actual workers more in charge of the unions than professional union people. Perhaps they could put a little less emphasis on seniority and allow a little more consideration given to a workers skills and work ethics.

The NHL and how their union works is a bit confusing; but I am starting to get an idea of how it works.

[idealisttotheend]

August, August, August. You've basically argued for regulation and a restriction of the free market, in this case for labour in teh NHL. I never thought I'd see the day.

The NHL is the corporation and individual teams are branch offices.

To start off, you are trying to redefine the terms to suit your own preconceptions of economics. A more apt analogy is that the NHL is the proffessional association representing the thirty seperate teams. NHL head office might like it if the teams ran like branch office but that is far from the truth. The reality is that the current problems are caused by owners in the larger markets wanting to spend their way to a Stanely Cup while the owners in smaller markets are trying to survive at all (and are in fact running as essentially non profit organizations at the best of times while not being all that competitive). The NHL does a good job of presenting a united front (by heavily fining owners who speak out of turn) but in reality if New York and Detroit were being run as branch offices the NHL wouldn't have the salary problems that it does.

Prices determined in a free market are examples of cooperation, not competition.

Untrue. Competition for players is driving salaries up. No one in Edmonton considers themselves to be cooperating with people in Colorado, in fact the competion from Colarado is drivng them out of buisness. (Note: there will likely be no team in Edmonton if a salary cap does not get done). The salary cap is an example of the different NHL teams cooperating to try and regulate the competition between them. Otherwise the rampant competition will destroy the entire league. A form of regulation if you will.

One could even draw an analogy to government regulation in the economy.

Before you argue that Edmonton should be left to die in a Darwinian expression of it's market failure consider this. 19 teams lost an average of 18 million dollars last year in the NHL (source: The Levitt report). If Edmonton goes, a lot of teams are going to go with them. Secondly, Edmonton remains one of the strongest organization in the leagues. Many players that go on to large contracts and superstardom still come up through Edmonton. Edmonton drafts well, coaches well, has good goaltending and usually makes the playoffs even with one of the smallest salaries in the league (breaking the hearts of it's fans every year by selling many of it's good players to reduce it's salaries). The fact that Edmonton doesn't make money has nothing to do with their merit or skill within the market. I dare you to find anyone who knows anything about hockey (or economics) who will argue that Edmonton is unable to survive as a franchise because of any reason other than it's market simply isn't big enough to get the $200 dollar ticket prices. This is important when you consider whether or not free market price setting is a form of cooperation between Edmonton and it's rivals.

The NHL (and pro sports in general) is in many ways a very good microcosm of the problems with economics. The only difference is that in this case it is labour that benefits from the race to the bottom. In this case it is labour that threatens the entire system with their greed (and their own long term interests). Something of a role reversal but that too can speak to the power of unions.

It is worth noting though that leagues with the best regulation of competition among members (like the NFL with their salary cap) are doing the best while under regulated leagues get themselves in trouble (NHL, MLB). It should also be noted that in sports teams like the Calgary Flames and Florida Marlins can beat the big salaries despite the odds. Such cannot often be said in the real world, (when's the last time a Microsoft or Wal Mart went down to smaller competition, it's almost impossible).