SEIU, 2nd largest labor union in the USA, votes to support Ali Act to MMA
Supporters of the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association are celebrating a string of victories by their group over the last few weeks, including one of the largest unions in the country voting to support expanding the Ali Act to MMA.
Written by John S. Nash
The last couple of weeks seem to have been successful ones for the both the fighters suing the UFC for antitrust violations and members of the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association, two groups that seem to have a great deal of overlap.
On September 25th, the United States District Court Judge in Las Vegas denied the UFC's motion to dismiss, permitting the class action lawsuit against the UFC that was originally filed by Cung Le, Jon Fitch, and Nate Quarry last December to go ahead. Our own Paul Gift was in attendance to give a minute by minute breakdown of the proceedings.
On September 30th last week, the magistrate at the same court denied the UFC's request to restrict access to discovery for Rob Maysey, plaintiff's counsel and also founder of the MMAFA, on the grounds that he was a "competitor." Not only will Maysey have the same access as the other attorneys for the plaintiffs but it is my understanding that the ruling also extends to the named plaintiff fighters themselves.
Among the items the UFC has agreed to hand over to the plaintiffs for discovery are "detailed financial documents such as consolidated financial statements, event-by-event financial analyses, where available, showing gate receipts, Pay-Per-View revenues, and sponsorship and merchandise revenues and documents showing revenue from other sources that are not contained in the event-by event analyses. Zuffa also proposed to provide financial data sufficient to show each athlete's event and non-event related compensation in Plaintiffs' requested format, where possible, on an event-by-event and fighter-by-fighter basis."
The SEIU is the second largest labor union in the United States, behind only the National Education Association, with 1.9 million members in the U.S. and Canada, representing mostly healthcare and property services workers. Over the last decade it has also been one of the most successful with regards to expanding membership.
When asked why the SEIU would be interested in helping MMA fighters with expanding the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act to MMA Brian Shepherd's told us that "we are always interested in advancing laws that are in the best interest of working people. We support all workers trying to get more protections on their jobs, and we don't think that just because someone's job is being an athlete it should be any different."
This is not the first union to voice their support for the MMAFA and their goal of having the MMA covered under the Ali Act. Earlier this year Nate Quarry, Jon Fitch, Wanderlei Silva and others met with the National Football League Player Association's Executive Director DeMaurice Smith who expressed support for their efforts.
"Whatever you need from our union we'll be with you guys until the end of time," Smith wasrecorded telling them.
And at the Association of Boxing Commissions annual meeting over the summer, Juanito Ibarra announced another union member of the AFL-CIO , the Teamsters, were supporting the MMAFA efforts to expand the Ali Act to MMA.
This was later confirmed to Bloody Elbow by a representative of Teamsters Local 986 in California who informed us that they "have been working with the MMAFA to help them with their efforts including supporting their work to expand the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act to include mixed martial arts fighters."
It is not clear what this support means. It may entail only vocal encouragement or be nothing more than photo ops but if those labor organizations are offering their political clout and connections it could prove much more consequential in trying to get a Federal law changed.
*This article originally appeared on Bloody Elbow. It was written by John Nash on Oct. 6, 2015
