National Basketball Players Association
trade union
The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) is the labor union that represents National Basketball Association (NBA) players. It was founded in 1954, making it the oldest trade union of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. However, the NBPA was not recognized by NBA team owners until ten years later. Its offices are in the historic Park and Tilford Building in New York City. It was briefly a trade association after dissolving as a union during the 2011 NBA lockout.
History
Founding and struggle for recognition (1954–1957)
In 1954, Celtics star point guard Bob Cousy and friend and unofficial agent Joe Sharry canvassed long-tenured players on each of the league's teams by mail, including the fledgling NBA's stars Paul Arizin and Dolph Schayes, and received support from the majority to approach the NBA president Maurice Podoloff. Cousy and the players sought basic improvements of conditions including being paid for promotional activities, a limit of twenty exhibition games per season, impartial dispute arbitration, and moving expenses for traded players. While Podoloff granted back pay for players of folded franchises, the NBA refused to acknowledge the players association or make other changes until Cousy approached the AFL-CIO in 1957 and the players threatened a strike.
Recognition, early successes, stalled negotiations (1957–1964)
After formal recognition by the NBA, the NBPA won its players per diem payments and travel expenses and an increase in the playoff pool payment, and the majority of the previously demanded conditions. In 1958, however, dismayed at the lack of dues payments by players, Cousy would resign his position out of frustration.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Basketball Players Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.