Whether you have been following the WNBA collective bargaining agreement or not, pay attention to what just happened.
-
Whether you have been following the WNBA collective bargaining agreement or not, pay attention to what just happened. Because it is rare. And it matters far beyond basketball.
Our current approach to labor negotiation is weighted on a scale of exploitation. Coupled with the other tactics of the myth, coercion and discrimination, the goal of the most privileged has always been to maintain information asymmetry. To extract maximum value at the lowest possible cost.
-
Whether you have been following the WNBA collective bargaining agreement or not, pay attention to what just happened. Because it is rare. And it matters far beyond basketball.
Our current approach to labor negotiation is weighted on a scale of exploitation. Coupled with the other tactics of the myth, coercion and discrimination, the goal of the most privileged has always been to maintain information asymmetry. To extract maximum value at the lowest possible cost.
And if that means performing good faith at the bargaining table until you are forced into a position that challenges your leverage, then that is exactly what gets done.
What made this negotiation different is that for the first time, the players had access to information equal to that of the owners. Popularity numbers. Growth projections. Profitability data. The myth depends on one party not knowing what the other knows. When that gap closes, the leverage shifts.
-
And if that means performing good faith at the bargaining table until you are forced into a position that challenges your leverage, then that is exactly what gets done.
What made this negotiation different is that for the first time, the players had access to information equal to that of the owners. Popularity numbers. Growth projections. Profitability data. The myth depends on one party not knowing what the other knows. When that gap closes, the leverage shifts.
And the owners had to actually negotiate.
But here is what made the WNBA players historic: they did not negotiate for the stars.
They negotiated for everyone.
A league dominated by Black women who know their worth, who could have fought only for the ones already benefiting from branding deals and visibility, chose instead to fight for every equally talented woman who may never access those opportunities.
-
And the owners had to actually negotiate.
But here is what made the WNBA players historic: they did not negotiate for the stars.
They negotiated for everyone.
A league dominated by Black women who know their worth, who could have fought only for the ones already benefiting from branding deals and visibility, chose instead to fight for every equally talented woman who may never access those opportunities.
Women who deserved an improved lived experience while playing professionally.
Women whose retirement the previous agreements left exposed.
That is not a union strategy.
That is a values system in practice.
That is what it looks like when the mandate is to leave no one behind.
Life beyond the supremacy myth will require a complete retraining of how we engage with each other. Starting with an honest reckoning with the role the myth plays in our indoctrinated beliefs about our own supremacy.
-
Women who deserved an improved lived experience while playing professionally.
Women whose retirement the previous agreements left exposed.
That is not a union strategy.
That is a values system in practice.
That is what it looks like when the mandate is to leave no one behind.
Life beyond the supremacy myth will require a complete retraining of how we engage with each other. Starting with an honest reckoning with the role the myth plays in our indoctrinated beliefs about our own supremacy.
Our justification for taking what does not belong to us.
Our willingness to destroy what we cannot have.
The WNBA should be the leadership model for labor movements going forward. Not because they won.
But because of how they redefined winning.
#LifeBeyondTheSupremacyMyth #MythOfWhiteSupremacy #ProfitWithoutOppression #KimCrayton
-
R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topicR relay@relay.publicsquare.global shared this topic
