Occupy Ponte Vedra Beach

Those readers that know me personally, don't need a reminder of my solidarity with the oppressed working class.  In fact, I demonstrated that solidarity on this blog not long ago, offering to man the barricades with a fellow blogger... as long as the demonstration wasn't on a day the golf club is open.  

But have you ever noticed that sports is the Bizarro World of labor relations?  In the real world organized labor operates as a cartel, keeping out competition and thereby earning monopoly rents in the form of higher wages in benefits.  Think for instance of a baseball collective bargaining negotiation...the players, labor, are after a free market and the owners, management, are looking to be saved from themselves.

So the astute reader, but I repeat myself, will have intuited that I'm heading somewhere with this, perhaps there's some sort of labor issue roiling the placid waters of the golf world?  And logically you might assume that such a dispute would involve the players, but that's where you will have gone astray...

Rex Hoggard fills us in on the issues, and it turns out that the Tour isn't much for staying within its weight class:

A potential showdown is brewing between thePGA Tour and the association that represents the majority of the circuit’s caddies, according to a letter obtained by GolfChannel.com.

The letter dated June 17 from the Association of Professional Tour Caddies to the Tour has requested clarification over a litany of issues. 

The APTC, which was formed last year and represents more than 125 Tour caddies, is seeking to create a health program and retirement plan for its members, as well as better working conditions at tournaments.

I'm sure everyone would be supportive of the loopers' initiative to help themselves, especially as relates to health care and retirement savings.  It goes without saying that for every Bones MacKay and Joe LaCava there's hundreds that work in anonymity, and 10% of the purse for an MC doesn't go as far as it used to.

So, what could these well-meaning folks be fighting over?  Silly question, no, since it's always about money with these good folks.  It's just passing strange to see the Tour fighting over money with a group of folks that, you know, have none:

The letter also claims the APTC has “received conflicting information” from the Tour and that officials initially told the association that caddies, like players, were allowed to enter into sponsorship agreements. 

Later the Tour adjusted its position, “We were told we have no marketing opportunities and the Tour would be very restrictive as it relates to caddies.” 

According to the letter, caddies were also told that any potential sponsor that would conflict with an existing marketing partnership the Tour has would also not be allowed; yet players aren’t subject to the same rules. Lee Westwood, for example, has an endorsement agreement with UPS which would appear to be in direct conflict with FedEx which sponsors the circuit’s season-long points race as well as an annual tournament in Memphis.

Let's parse this a bit, shall we?  The Tour has always  been clear that its players are forever independent contractors, with no employer-employee relationship to be imputed.  Fair enough, and that's used to explain why it can't compel a player to appear at any particular event or interfere in the players' relationship with sponsors or other golf tours.

So if the players are independent contractors, what are the caddies?  They're certainly not employees of the Tour, and one suspects that they're independent contractors as well.  But obviously their arrangements are made with the player, not with the Emirs of PGA Tour Boulevard.  

One can understand that the Tour would be within its rights to set reasonable rules of conduct for a caddie to work their events.  After all, one is running a first-class event and you'd naturally want anyone within the ropes to be properly attired, maintain a reasonable level of personal hygiene, etc.  And presumably wearing a bib with the player's name on it is a seemingly reasonable requirement, but even that is contentious:

Officers with the APTC were also told that any sponsorship agreements involving the caddie bib would not be allowed and that the circuit already has an “exclusive agreement” with Nature Valley for headwear, a deal that also includes a “caddie pool” that awards an estimated $500,000 to caddies based on the performance of their player. 

“The caddies have not joined in any ‘exclusive agreement,’” the letter read. “Through the Tour’s actions, caddies have affectively been restrained from competition in the marketplace.”

The association offered a proposal to the Tour that would fund an insurance program and retirement plan, totaling $10 million annually, in exchange “for wearing the bib” but the Tour has not responded to the request.

Hmmm...that would seem to veer into the gray area, as the $500,000 award pool seems to recognize.  I'm enough of a cynic that I assume the Tour wouldn't be even sharing that if one of their dozens of lawyers hadn't suggested they were on thin ice.

But while the bib might be arguable, let's return to the Lee Westwood example above.  I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but can we see any reasonable basis on which this makes sense, either logically or legally?  And how unseemly is it for the Tour to be picking a fight with the caddies?  Geez, let the guys make a little scratch, will ya?