Monday’s “pivotal” collective bargaining agreement (CBA) meeting, the first in-person bargaining session since October to include players, was not quite much ado about nothing, but initial reporting suggests that the WNBA and WNBPA exited the 3-hour confab not substantially closer to reaching a deal.
After the meeting, WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike and vice president Alysha Clark related feelings of frustration to Front Office Sports’ Annie Costabile. Costabile reported:
Ogwumike and Clark expressed feeling a lack of urgency from the league’s side coming out of Monday’s meeting after the WNBA failed to offer a counterproposal. They added that time could have been better spent considering players have not had an in-person meeting with the league since close to the WNBA Finals.
The union, in particular, was dismayed that the league still did not offer a formal response to the proposal that the players shared approximately six weeks ago, with the league, according to Costabile, indicating that they “would begin working on an official response to their proposal.”
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On the league’s lack of a counterproposal, Ogwumike said, “They volunteered that they did not have a proposal prepared at the top of the meeting. That kind of set the tone for the conversation because we were hoping to hear otherwise.”
Despite their sense of dissatisfaction, players are not yet ready to initiate a strike. Speaking to Costabile, Clark shared:
There are so many more conversations that have to happen before a strike can even be called. After the meeting today, it’s still on the table. Until we get a response from the league about proposals, there’s nothing that we’ve been able to negotiate and go back and forth with to even warrant “Ok, what does a strike look like?”
It’s on the table, as it has been since the strike authorization vote happened
According to ESPN’s Alexa Philippou, the session “was based more on sharing the sentiments, philosophies and perspectives driving each side’s positions and having honest dialogue around those viewpoints, sources said, as opposed to exchanging new proposals.” Costabile also reported that the meeting permitted ”players and owners to connect and ask questions of each other.“
In addition to Ogwumike and Clark, the players present were WNBPA treasurer Brianna Turner and Washington Mystics player representative Stefanie Dolson. While first vice president Kelsey Plum and vice president Napheesa Collier planned to attend, travel issues prevented their presence. They, along with vice president Breanna Stewart and secretary Elizabeth Williams, joined via Zoom. An estimated 40 more players joined remotely.
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On the league side, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was present, along with members of the labor relations committee and other owners. From the seven-member labor relations committee, which is compromised of owners and executives, Connecticut Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti and Seattle Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder were in New York, while Phoenix Mercury owner Mat Ishbia participated virtually. New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai and Storm co-owner Sue Bird also attended in person.
Per Costabile, Ogwumike and Clark also disputed reports that intimated divided perspectives among the WNBPA executive committee. Clark said:
I don’t think there’s been fracturing, As the EC, the point of our job is to have these tough conversations behind closed doors with one another. To be able to hash through it all, because it’s a lot. It’s complicated. There are so many things that are on the table in this proposal and us having discussions doesn’t equate to fracturing.
Before the meeting with the league, the union held a call at WNBPA headquarters, according to Costabile. In addition to more than 40 players joining, political leader Stacey Abrams and AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler were on the call, offering their support to the WNBPA.
