By Alex Bard

Right now, the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) is threatening to decertify in preparation for an owner lockout, following the current NFL season. Decertification is the legal term for dissolving of a labor union as the exclusive bargaining agent for collective bargaining.

What does that mean? In this case, the NFLPA would no longer be certified to represent NFL players in collective bargaining negotiations with the league, thus ending the “collective bargaining” relationship. This relationship is necessary to comes to terms on a new CBA, something the league and players have failed to do so after months of negotiation.

Decertification is one option available to labor organizations – including players’ associations – during collective bargaining negotiations. The current bargaining agreement is set to expire in March, with all signs pointing to a lockout, driven by disgruntled owners. The NFLPA is in a tough spot, where decertification is arguably the only tool left for the unions to avoid a league lockout.

Decertification is a serious move and requires buy-in from many key stakeholders in the NFL. As such, NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith has traveled to each NFL locker room to take an unofficial tally, to assess whether they have sufficient players to vote in favor of decertifying the union.  On November 17, the Oakland Raiders tipped the scales – with their support, it looks as though decertification is a viable option should push come to shove.

What a decertification of the players association will mean for NFL fans is that there would not be a lockout following the current season. The league would lose its power to institute a lockout if the NFLPA decertifies so for the fan, football should go on, as we all hope. However, the game may be very different.

If NFLPA decertifies and the 2011 NFL season is played without a collective bargaining agreement, owners could institute unilateral league-wide regulations on such things as the rookie draft, salary cap, and free agency. Without an agent to advocate on the players’ behalf, they lose the ability to bargain collectively on these subjects.

Decertification is not without precedent. From 1989 to 1993, the NFLPA was decertified, and despite that the players gained free agency in 1993 through courtroom battles and continued negotiation, the league instituted “a heavy-handed, one-sided free agency system” that produced only two free agent moves over five years. What could easily happen in 2011 if the NFLPA decertifies is that the league could institute a similarly one-sided free agent system that would result in less player movement and more holdouts by free agents.

Therefore, while decertification of the NFLPA at the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement would lead to football in 2011, this action could significantly impact player movement. Leaving salary cap, free agency, and rookie draft decisions solely up to the league may result in teams not being able to sign or re-sign certain players and more players holding out for contracts.

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Alex Bard is a second-year law student at American University Washington College of Law. Alex is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Vanderbilt University, and currently resides in Washington, DC. He can be reached at alex.m.bard@gmail.com.