Power dictates the terms

Can we ever think of negotiating our employment contract? Can we ever say to the company that we won’t sign the contract unless the terms are changed? A realistic answer would be “no”. This is because, we are used to a work set up where employers possess a huge power. Employees are mere individual dispensable resources readily available in the market. So we don’t even think that we can really negotiate with the company. What if this dimension of the employee - employer relationship changes, where employees possess as good a power as the employer? In this situation employees can dictate the term of the contract. We see this situation typically in sports when the game is as much in need of the stars as the stars are in need of the game. The case of conflict of interest in sponsorship is a common phenomenon in sports. In the case under discussion, the Indian players were able to negotiate the contract with ICC because of the power they possessed. The power was the fan following of the Indian stars. Without them the game is without any spice. In the above case, ICC wanted to safeguard the interest of the event sponsors by getting a restrictive contract signed by the players. According to the contract players would not be allowed to endorse any brand which would have conflict of interest with the event sponsors for a stipulated time. But by signing the contract, the players would breach the existing contract they already have with the brands they endorse. This could cost them dearly in terms of fines and the opportunity cost of not endorsing during the peak time of the tournament. The players refused to sign the contract with the original terms and brought ICC to the negotiation table to tweak the contract for them. This was possible because of the influence they had on the game. Without the Indian stars the ICC champions trophy would have been a flop show. This would even have gone against the interest of the event sponsors for whom ICC floated the original contract; because, without the Indian stars the tournament couldn’t have pulled huge crowd and without the crowd nobody will sponsor the tournament. The Indian stars had the capability to pull huge crowd, and Indian crowd is the major follower of cricket. Hence the majority of the revenue of ICC was dependent on Indian crowd, and India being a huge market, the interest of the event sponsors lied on the size of the Indian crowd; such was the power of the Indian players. This is the reason why they could refuse to bow down to ICC or BCCI and could negotiate the terms of the contract with them.

We can argue that no one is bigger than the game; People love the game but not players etc… These are true in long term. The game has created stars. It can have replacement in absence of one. But when we are talking about stars like Sachin Tendulkar in the cricket crazy nation like India, it would take a lot of time to fill the void. But it is definitely true that the game will not wait for Sachin. The game would find another star sooner or later. But in a short term, their absence would have a huge impact on the game, which would affect the immediate tournaments.

So the lesson for us from this case is, if we really want to stand up and negotiate the contracts with the employer, we must have the power to back us. Then the question arises, do we have to have power to negotiating any contract with our employers? Can’t we negotiate on the grounds which are very much legitimate and rightful? Yes, we can. But for that the industry should have that level of maturity and professionalism, where both employee and employer respect each other’s rights and both the parties collaborate to get mutual benefits rather than focusing only on self benefits.