An image film by “EU Athletes”, a European multisport association that unites and represents over 30 players’ associations and unions, 25,000 athletes in 15 countries: In the spot, athletes explain why it is important for them to be organized to be.
A statement in German is missing. This is probably due to the fact that no German player representation is a partner of EU Athletes. Surprising, because Germany is one of the most populous countries with a corresponding number of athletes.
But if you are looking for self-organized athletes here, you will end up on orphaned websites of basketball players, with telephone lines that nobody ever picks up, or fill out a contact form with the association of ice hockey players and never hear from them again.
German athletes have to do pioneering work
For Germany, the current status can be stated: professional athletes who want to organize themselves with colleagues have to do pioneering work. Because apart from football, there is no functioning self-organization in the sense of a classic trade union in Germany in any discipline.
The history of the “sports union” is also a history of failure. It was founded in 2001 by the Ver.di service union as a community of solidarity to represent interests in clubs, leagues, the media and politics. The “sports union” no longer exists. Hardly anyone at ver.di knows why the project failed: a lack of interest, a Ver.di press spokesman suspects.
Work sociologist Klaus Dörre has been researching questions of employee self-organization for decades: “Popular sport, but especially competitive sport, is of course individualized and competitive. Even with team sports, the selection process begins in a way, so to speak, in adolescence. And that of course makes it difficult when you always have to keep in mind, so to speak, being better than the other and that yourself in team sports. That of course makes it difficult to think that we have common interests and that we should assert them together.”
“Athlete both product and work”
The Australian Brendan Schwab takes a similar view. Schwab is one of the most distinguished employment lawyers in sports worldwide and has conducted negotiations for sports unions on several occasions, especially in professional team sports. He represents the World Players Association, the global umbrella organization of athletes’ representatives headquartered in Switzerland:
We try to convey to the athletes that they are both the product and the work. The sport cannot exist without them. This is very big business and they should be given a fair share of the revenue that can only come from the effort and sacrifice of the athletes. And if the sport isn’t willing to share that revenue with them, then it’s a simple case of exploitation that needs to be addressed. And the best way to do that is by developing union awareness among players so they can sit down with governing bodies and negotiate on an equal footing.
First sports unions in the USA
The history of sports unions begins in the 1960s. In the United States, basketball and baseball players organize. Even in the big soccer countries like England, France and Spain, athletes fight for the right to form a trade union.
A second wave follows in the late 1980s to mid-1990s when professional sports explode. Driven by massive media marketing of certain sports, the hobby becomes work for many. At that time – comparatively late – the Association of Contract Soccer Players, VDV for short, was founded in 1987. The lobby for professional soccer players and players in Germany with around 1400 members.
We are currently experiencing the third wave of start-ups in sports. Today, the main issues are equality, the autonomy of athletes, freedom of expression and human rights in sport – especially in the Olympic disciplines. In 2017, Athletes Germany, the first independent representation of cadre athletes, was founded in Germany in 2017, which is financed by state funds according to the Bundestag resolution.
Managing director Johannes Herber: “The big difference to the players’ unions in the USA or others in Europe is actually that they are able to negotiate collective agreements in which all the framework conditions, salaries, minimum salaries of the players are actually clarified. That is But that’s not the case with us. The athletes are dependent on a set of rules that is often specified by the top of the sports pyramid, it’s like general terms and conditions on a platform.”
Culture change is noticeable
Athletes Germany wants to challenge these cartels and set new sport-political impulses. The Athletes Association is still young. But a cultural change is already noticeable. There has never been more attitude in sport, on an international and national level. Athletes want to have a say in their working conditions much more naturally.
When temperatures of over 37 degrees were announced for this year’s marathon in Munich, Katharina Steinruck was one of the more than 50 international athletes who wrote an open letter calling for the start to be moved to the morning hours: “If it’s ultimately a matter of health goes, or about things that are no longer acceptable as an athlete, then of course we have to comment on it.”
However, there does not seem to be a broad trade union movement in Germany for the foreseeable future to negotiate salaries and support athletes, who will also go on strike if necessary. And this despite the fact that athletes have shown in recent years that together they find consistent attitudes faster than their associations.