The Athletes' are Cooperating
And together, they will win.
Happily moonlighting making propaganda posters for people power.
In a surprise to perhaps no one, I love unions. If you’ve read everything I’ve written, you’ll know I sneak nods to the movement in where ever I can. With the story breaking this week of The Athlete’s Cooperative winning the right to collectively bargain, I am reminded of the line from one of my favourite poems turned union anthem.
Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes—
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.
That’s what The Athletes’ Cooperative are fighting for, representing 60 rowers and cyclists. Given the events in their sports of the last few years, it is simply outrageous that High Performance Sports New Zealand (HPSNZ) would try to resist. An athlete died and even though the review didn’t directly cover her circumstances, they still found her sport had failed her. This review recommended ensuring a strong athlete voice but HPSPNZ would rather to maintain the status quo.
Get absolutely wrecked. I simply cannot believe in the integrity of an organisation whose leaders routinely sit in poorly lit conference rooms, all grave faces and promises, but whose only tangible outcome has been fighting with the people for whom they exists. Shame on them and shame on Steve Tew for being “surprised and concerned” at athletes wanting to fix things.
How is it that we got here? With athletes and their administrators at loggerheads in an Olympic year. Well, to figure that out, we need to go back to 2016.
It was an underwhelming performance from our cyclists in Rio. Just one team securing silver after 17.4 million of Government investment. Money isn’t any concrete assurance of results but for so many to have missed the marked, something felt off. It didn’t take long for things to simmer over, prompting the first Heron review in 2018.
Here it was revealed that cycling had a problem. It’s high performance environment was anything but. The grave faces sat in the conference room that day and said
“There is no question HPSNZ could and should have done more with the information we had. This is not something we want to see repeated. To any athletes impacted by the conduct of HPSNZ, we are sorry”.
That’s what they said but what they did meant everyone was back in the same place, with the same expensive lawyer, reviewing the same sport just four years later. Only this time, a young cyclist had been lost. Olivia Podmore, in extreme distress, was suspected of taking her own life. This review would underline yet again the fundamental tension within high performance sports - medals are being prioritised over athlete well-being.
That day, HPSNZ said “Particularly anyone who feels they haven’t had the support they needed to resolve these issues. I am sorry people are still suffering trauma and we will do all that we can to support them into the future.” Let’s see how that commitment holds up…
Meanwhile, rowing conducted it’s own review in 2018. One that was interrogating that same question - does the sport prioritised the desire for medals over athlete wellbeing? This review was less transparent but the resignation of the CEO shortly thereafter suggests that the answer, yet again, was yes.
Graphic design is my passion
So now we have a track record of sports admitting their inability to prioritise athlete welfare. Is it any wonder then that the athletes make moves to protect themselves? A group come together to found The Athletes’ Cooperative as a trade union in 2022. Ensuring they have an independent and collective voice to speak they can now use to make noise on the issues they care about. They enter discussions with HPSNZ, they want to progress findings from all these reviews and they want to save themselves from future ones.
They want to get paid a liveable wage and have input on environments but they also want respect. Give us Bread, but give us Roses.
The leaders at HPSNZ, roles that they have applied and been well compensated for, didn’t have negotiating with unions on their job description. So unsurprisingly they are not up to the task. For all their promises of committing to hear the athlete’s voice, things break down.
But now there is a union, there is a process. The Athletes’ Cooperative issue a notice to begin collective bargaining. HPSNZ tried to reject this on the basis that it “does not employ athletes”. Cute. If you look at HPSNZ website, you will be met with a wall of these athlete’s they don’t employ. Take the athletes away and what are you left with? They may soon find out.
The Employment Relations Authority found in The Athletes’ Cooperative favour, that HPSNZ does need to enter into collective bargaining discussions. More than that, they need to follow a framework to reach a collective agreement. If they don’t, there is a version of events that could have athletes take strike action. What would HPSNZ have on their website then?
All of this is foolishness on HPSNZ part. There is nothing to fear from an engaged group of people who are passionate about achieving the results we are all after. If they work with their union, they won’t need anymore reviews or grave faces. They will have an established process to fall back on, one that exists to prioritise athletes over their achievement. That is the gold we should all be chasing.
With you,
Alice
PS. There is a whole longer rant in me about how outside of Olympic sport, this players union could provide a blueprint for others to follow. So chances are I’m going to pick this topic back up again :)