Benjamin Savona
Cricket Australia and Australia Cricketers Association (ACA) have finally reached an agreement in an ugly pay dispute which waged for 10 months.
But neither side got everything they wanted.
The players have agreed to the newest proposal that was tabled by Cricket Australia on the recommendation of Alistair Nicholson and the ACA. The benefits of this new deal can be viewed below.
The dispute, which began at the expiry of the previous pay deal in October of 2016, has slowly become one of the ugliest disputes in Australian sports history.
Tours have been cancelled for the Australia A team, and there have been threats of Ashes boycotts.
Despite the resolution, the relationship between Cricket Australia and the ACA still shows signs of being strained. CA’s CEO James Sutherland believes that relationships within the game have been tested, however are still in good shape moving forward.
“Neither side has got everything we wanted out of the deal but they shouldn’t be approached with a winner-takes-all mindset,” Sutherland told the media.
“Enduring outcomes depend on the needs of both parties being recognised in the negotiations and in the outcome.
“And in that spirit I think we have reached a good compromise, one we can both live with and one that will be good for the game and good for Australia’s cricketers.”
Alistair Nicholson, though pleased that negotiations finally proved fruitful, seemed to disagree with where the relationship between both parties is at.
“Repairing the relationship will take some time,” Nicholson said in response to Sutherland.
LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT THE SERIES OF EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE LEADING UP TO THIS MORNINGS AGREEMENT:
After MoU discussions between Cricket Australia and ACA began on November 11 2016, reached its first hiccup on December 12 when CA came under investigation by Fair Work Ombudsman for their controversial pregnancy clause.
The clause, which required female players to state whether they were pregnant prior to signing a contract and even more controversially no maternity leave payments.
Despite discussions bubbling away over the course of last summer’s tour of India, the next formal pay offer wasn’t presented until March 21, where Cricket Australia’s plans to break up the revenue share and invest in grassroots cricket was presented.
This deal was emphatically denied by the ACA and players and it was revealed that all players would be out of contract by July 1, if an agreement wasn’t signed.
With tensions continually rising as the July 1st deadline approached, Cricket Australia sent all currently contracted players new contracts on June 23, a move which infuriated the ACA who categorically refused to allow its players to sign contracts prior to the new MoU’s completion.
From June 27-30, tensions rose steadily as both parties dug their heels in, with Cricket Australia threatening players with a 2017-18 Ashes ban if they took part in any exhibition matches beyond the expiry of the existing MoU.
Deadline day came and went and Cricket Australia marked it by hardening its stance against the players, declaring that out of contract players will not be paid a previously agreed upon sum and those funds would be diverted to grassroots cricket.
As the month of July commenced, it was obvious that little progress was being made and these issues were most discernible on July 27 (last Thursday), where Sutherland gathered the media to announce that and external referee was to be hired to settle the dispute if terms could not be agreed in the coming week.
As we now know, external mediation was officially avoided this morning, with players accepting the recommendation provided to them by Alistair Nicholson and the ACA.
Photo Courtesy of Fox Sports.
Arguments have been mounted that both parties have handled the situation extremely poorly and connotation that those involved struggle to refute.
“Both parties regret what has been done to the relationships through the dispute” Sutherland said to the media “History will judge whether it was all worth it in the end,”
Nicholson believes that, despite the nature of the dispute, the player’s reputations have not been damaged throughout the process.
“The players they haven’t asked anything they haven’t had in the past and so they’ve been comfortable to hold onto that partnership and that model that they’ve got,” Nicholson said.
I think it shows a collective group that believes in something and has had something in the past and what’s to stick together can do that.”
The Australian Cricket Team will now look forward to the tour of Bangladesh which will take place later this month.
