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Thanks SK. This is a great debate, and I have some training on unions and union avoidance, so I'll incorporate some of the HR dribble I am famous for. I may well concede the "timeliness" point to you as my vacation will preclude me from a load of research, but rest assured I will bring my "A" game.
I have often called unions both the best and the worst thing to happen to American business. Unions gave workers the right to organize, to strike, offered them some fair say in being overworked, underpaid, and basically exploited by the business owners of the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Things have changed, and now unions have become a major hindrance in the American economy. Unions allowed the Irish and Italian mobs to form and organized crime to flourish in the US for much of the last century. Nowhere is the danger of those unions more apparent than in professional sports. Thanks to pro sports unions, athletes who have enough talent to play major league baseball make millions of dollars and cannot be forced to take a drug test without suitable, bargained compensation.
1. A Pro Wrestling Union will jack up prices for everything. Pro sports teams can count on the fact that a huge number of fans will come to each show, each night. In baseball, teams will have 10,000 - 30,000 fans come to games 6 days per week, get deals for broadcasting from ESPN (whereas some teams like the Yankees have their own multi-billion dollar cable stations), and get subsides for arenas and stadiums from taxpayers. Pro wrestling could expect NONE of this, so as the wrestler union forces men like Vince McMahon to pay millions extra for even the low leverl wrestlers, pay for their health insurance and travel, etc, the result will be costs passed off to the fan.
SAG can't help / afford it. The screen actors guild protects actors, theatre workers, etc. Well that's terrific. But you know that actors and theatre workers do what they do in a vastly more controlled environment. When a tough spot has to be done by an actor, a professional stuntman can come in, make the jump, while CGI and editing makes the rest look good. Wrestlers have NO stunt men, get ONE shot to do things, and get no benefit from CGI. The danger level for a pro wrestler is higher, so as a result, the cost to the SAG would be greater than it'd be for a real screen actor. SAG cannot afford it, so either the wrestler him / herself has to pay for it or the promotion does.
You think wrestling is a monopoly now??? If a union is formed and the costs of employing the talent is driven up, only a major company with a fan base and economies of scale in its corner will survive. Smaller indy promotions will be swallowed up like nothing. Forget it. TNA will barely stick around, ROH will get drained of cash as they try to get anyone to stay on their show, and WWE will be the ONLY promotion capable of carrying on a show. So if you want to see competition, and union will prohibit that even further.
The quality of the product will drop. If the wrestlers unionize and folks like Vince McMahon have to pay for the risks taken in the ring, then you bet that Vince will go to these wrestlers and tell them "no more top rope, no more ladders, no more cages, etc" Why? Because that's the only way to drop the injury risk and lower his costs. If you're accustomed to the level of action and athleticism that you've seen for 10 years, you can kiss it goodbye if a union forms.
Wrestlers are exploited, plain and simply. Wrestlers sometimes have to perform up to 7 days a week, 8 hours a day during most weeks in the year. Theres no off-season, no rest, and even worse, one of these wrestlers careers could end in one second with one wrong move.
But what about those wrestlers whos careers dont end with an injury? Well simply, they get let go, no pension, no retirement plan and often left to make ends meat by going to indy promotions and giving autographs.
Very few wrestlers are kept around when they cant wrestle any more, they give their life to the business and what do the majority get at the end? Nothing, this is one of the many problems that could be solved with a wrestlers union.
Unions are different from what they used to be, but the need for one could not be ignored if wrestlers went on strike. History has shown that when workers in a company strike, the owners have to listen, this is what needs to happen in wrestling. Now granted, conditions arent as bad as 100/200 years ago, but look around, professional sports, most of Hollywood in fact most areas of business have strong unions, so why not wrestling?.
1. Terrible working conditions.
Its no secret that wrestlers worldwide work under bad conditions, this is most apparent in the WWE. WWE wrestlers can work up to 7 days a week, performing at house shows, tapings, live events, ppv, autograph signings etc..
Wrestlers also have to keep in great physical shape, they have to work out whilst on the road, they are encouraged to take muscle enhancers, which can be very dangerous and have lead to death and long lasting mental affects.
2. Terrible retirement/ life after wrestling.
So wrestlers are at a very high risk of injury, and we see them get injured a lot, injured wrestlers who arent very valuable, will most likely find themselves shipped out of the WWE very quickly, Look at what happened with Andrew Test Martin, after suffering a serious neck injury, he was released, with little income, work and in a lot of pain, he turned to drugs, and unfortunately died. While this may be an extreme case, life after wrestling is very very bleak for most wrestlers. Look at a lot of the legends of the business, forced to tour round indy promotions signing autographs, just to support their family, they give their life to wrestling and are often left penniless.
3. Lower wages/ low share in profits.
Now that WWE is basically a monopoly, with low competition, they can now afford to cut wrestlers wages. The WWE is the only promotion with a safe, guaranteed wage, TNA is still a small upstart and cant offer the wages WWE can, and theres no guarantee that TNA will be around for long. With WCW gone, wrestlers have no control or bargaining chip, its the WWE and their steady wage or nothing. Now while WWE wrestlers wages may not all be low, they are considerably lower than when WCW was around and there was competition for wrestlers, obviously wrestlers would feel the knock on effect from this..