An in depth analysis of the 2017 Australian Cricket Pay Dispute

On 30 June 2017, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a five-year deal, negotiated between Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA), came to an end. The parties were unable to reach a new agreement; they had spent most of the period since December 2016 accusing each other of negotiating in “bad faith”[1]. In the absence of a new MOU, CA locked out (i.e. prevented from working) approximately 230 players whose contracts had expired. There were approximately 90 players who were on multi-year contracts whose employment was maintained.

On 3 August, the parties finally announced the Heads of Agreement of a new MOU.[2] The lockout lasted 33 days. It is the longest industrial dispute in the history of Australian sport. Though in saying this, there has only been one other example of such a dispute since the emergence of permanent player associations in Australia, beginning in the 1970s.[3] That was the refusal of the Matildas, Australia’s women’s national football/soccer team, to tour the USA in 2015 because of late and “inadequate” payments.[4] There is a precursor to this cricket dispute. The ACA formed in 1995 and found it difficult to gain recognition from the then Australian Cricket Board (ACB). A threatened strike in a One Day International in 1997 resulted in the ACB granting recognition and the subsequent negotiation of Australian Cricket’s first MOU in 1998.[5]

This article examines the working out and eventual resolution of this dispute, and considers its broader significance for Australian professional team sports.  Specifically it looks at:

• The background to the dispute
  
  
• Cricket Australia’s approach to negotiations
  
  
• The response of the Australian Cricketers’ Association
  
  
• The lockout period
  
  
• The final resolution