May 7, 2003

The 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters has decided to try to unionize boxers.

IBT president James Hoffa has approved a tentative budget of about $250,000 for a six-month organizing drive that could revolutionize the shrinking sport that has been losing credibility, legitimacy, and revenue for years.

. privately with Senator McCain in Washington today. Mr. McCain, the maverick Republican, favors unionization and has been the leading advocate for cleaning up boxing for years.

He persuaded Congress to enact his Muhammad Ali Protection Act two years ago. It limits exploitive contracts, prohibits conflicts of interest between managers and promoters, and mandates financial disclosure by promoters to fighters.

But the Ali Act lacks enforcement provisions. This creates an opportunity for a labor union to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with individual promoters (the employers) for wages, pension, and health-plan benefits.

Boxing is the only major sport without a union. Baseball, basketball, football, and hockey are all unionized.

The plan to get the Teamsters to organize boxers comes from Dan Kane, the reformist, anti-mob president of Local 202 in the Bronx, and his brother, labor lawyer Walter Kane.

They sold the idea to Mr. Hoffa, who is a sports fanatic and has many ex-boxers among the rank-and-file Teamsters. Experts estimate there are about 1,500 active professional boxers in America.

In the last two weeks, "more than 150 boxers have signed union cards," Walter Kane said.

Among those who have pledged support are undefeated rising star Muhammadoer Adulaev; unbeaten prospect Anthony Thompson; new cruiserweight champion James Toney, and ex-champ Diego Corales.

An impressive array of former champions is supporting the organizing drive, including Aaron Pryor, Buster Douglas, Roger Mayweather, Jose Torres, Tim Witherspoon, Mike McCallum, Vinnie Pazienza, Larry Holmes, and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, the savvy former lightweight champion and policeman’s son from Brownsville, who will also attend today’s McCain-Hoffa meeting.

Mr. Muhammad is now one of boxing’s most respected trainers, and he has emerged in the last few weeks as the lead organizer, using his disciplined efficiency, gym contacts, and list of cell phone numbers to consolidate support among boxers, who are often loners and skeptics.

The union-organizing drive is expected to go public officially at a Teamsters reception Monday in Las Vegas.

The Teamsters’ strategy is to begin by targeting the mid-level promoters in a sport where the two biggest promoters — Don King and Bob Arum — control 70% of the revenue.

One of those mid-level promoters is Manhattan-based Cedric Kushner, who supports the idea of unionization.

"I welcome it," Mr. Kushner says. "It would protect fighters in terms of compensation, a health plan, a pension plan. It would enhance the image of the sport. And this might attract sponsors and air time on free television."

In the 1920s, boxing was the second most-popular sport in America after baseball. It is probably about 20th now, below hockey, tennis, golf, NASCAR, wrestling, soccer, and arena football.

What has reduced boxing to almost a fringe cult has been corrupt ratings, crooked decisions, loose regulation, ring deaths, and exploitive mismanagement by King and Arum. The boxing fan base is sick of reading stories about destitute and demented former champs.

"I am lucky; I have a pension," Mr. Muhammad says. "But it comes from the Screen Actors’ Guild, not my years as a fighter." He has acted in four movies, including "Raging Bull."

The theory behind the union campaign is JFK’s famous quote, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

The goal is to drive out boxing’s systematic corruption and attract the return of corporate sponsorships and network TV.

To some degree the model that Mr. Muhammad and Walter Kane talk about is Times Square and Las Vegas, where law enforcement and corporate funding chased out the sleaze and brought in middle-class tourists.

Several promoters say they hope the organizing drive can lead to a "league-type structure" that would rationalize the sport, so that the best fighters would have to compete against each other.

In baseball, the Yankees have to play the Red Sox. In basketball, the Lakers have to play San Antonio. But in boxing, the best never have to fight the best, because there is no league schedule; every major fight is a separate ad-hoc deal. Boxing is also the only sport with no national commissioner, who could enforce uniform standards on an industry stuck somewhere between feudalism and piracy.

Promoter Lou DiBella expressed one complication of unionizing boxers. "I support unionization," he said. "It will be tricky in an industry where 1% of the workers earn 99% of the money."

Walter Kane says his model for a union structure is SAG, "where there are actors who have very different levels of earning power, but there is a minimum scale for everyone. We would negotiate a minimum scale for four-round boxers."

Mr. Muhammad and the Teamsters are coming along at the right time. Boxing is on the ropes. King and Arum are both in their 70s. Their days of near-absolute control are dwindling.

I am one Robert Kennedy biographer who is rooting for this Jimmy Hoffa to succeed, and create a pension fund for powerless workers called boxers.

This article originally appeared in The New York Sun on May 7, 2003 and was written by Jack Newfield.

©2003-2007 Joint Association of Boxers
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Eddie Mustafa Muhammad
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