Often pressure tactics can create more problems than they solve. That applies here too, whether it’s the players and their Association taking matters through the Courts or the owners staging lockouts. Use of pressure is a legitimate negotiating tactic but you have to be careful in its use.

Firstly it always risks de-railing the climate of the negotiation as this is “push” behaviour and nobody likes being pushed around, so it raises the temperature.

Secondly, if you are going to exert this kind of pressure, you have to be prepared to see it all the way through. If you start and then back off, the other side will think you are not serious and your negotiation authority is undermined.

So, in this case the players have to be prepared potentially to run actions all the way through the Courts, at enormous cost and risk, and the owners have to be prepared to proceed with lockouts for as long as it takes. Whilst all that is going on, energy is diverted away from the real task at hand, namely to find a negotiated or mediated solution that meets everybody’s needs.

In response to article here (nashvillecitypaper.com)