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Packers back state workers
16 February 2011
| GREEN BAY, Wis. - Members of the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers issued a statement in solidarity with Wisconsin workers seeking to retain their collective bargaining rights. |
“We know that it is team work on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great,” the players said in a statement issued Tuesday. “As a publicly owned team we wouldn’t have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans.
“It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work.
“The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin’s long-standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work.
“These public workers are Wisconsin’s champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.”
The statement was signed by seven current and former Packers, including linebacker Brady Poppinga and center Jason Spitz.
The National Football League Players Association also issued a statement of support.
“The NFL Players Association will always support efforts protecting a worker’s right to join a union and collectively bargain,” the association said. “Today, the NFLPA stands in solidarity with its organized labor brothers and sisters in Wisconsin.”
The Players Association is currently immersed in a contract battle with team owners and players face the possibility of a lockout if they don’t agree to management’s terms. |
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