Re: Way to go Sttegmans

Dans le message de news:sn05h6-5o6.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Donald Munro <fat-dumbass@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
Davey Crockett wrote:
At last: A rider With Balls

Tells them to stick their Anti-Doping Document where the Sun Don't
Shine

http://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme/breves2009/20090622_112543_steegmans-persiste-sans-signer.html


I'm no legal expert but I wonder if they employed him with a original
contract can he just be forced into an amendment ? Perhaps Sandy
will waive his consultancy fee and clarify.

Thanks. I really wanted to discuss this, but felt it would not be read.

The attempt to modify a valid contract without the _consent_ of all parties
is void. Katusha can't avoid its obligations by saying that Steegmans
failed to sign up for the new terms. They still have to pay him, and he
still has to ride as directed.

In most cases, adding a new obligation, even if consented to by all sides,
without providing some additional return compensation leaves the original
contract in place, and no one may enforce the new provision. The additional
compensation need not be of "equal" value, however. For example, confirming
that Steegmans will ride races he was already presumed to be listed for is
adequate compensation; the personalized Model Contract he has may not be so
specific.

The UCI has as its model contract one which is based on general principles
of European civil law, even though the UCI is not in Europe. (Well, you
know what I mean.) Regardless, a contract of employment (and this is what
it is, not an independent contracting relationship) is generally held to be
valid and enforceable in the place it is usually performed, which leads to
plenty of variation in these cases, but it will not be enforced in
contravention of the principles of labor law in those countries. I add
specifically that the labor laws of Russia are not much different from those
of Continental Europe, and despite lots of poor journalism and spicy
anti-Russian sentiment such laws are enforceable in the same way in Russia,
have been so enforced, and with an adequate financial stake, will be
enforced in the future in a reasonably transparent manner. One should
generally exclude Great Britain from the zone of enforceability.

I would suggest to Mr Steegmans that he offer to sign on to the new clause
if he obtains a counter compensation - namely, that in the event that he
completes the contract period without any misstep in doping violations, that
he receive five times the rate of compensation that was agreed to. Maybe
ten times.

One element that is going past without notice, it appears - while the Model
Contract does require the rider to accept and follow the decisions of the
team management about where and when to race, train, etc., it is blanketly
bad faith when the team punishes the rider for failing to be compliant about
this additional clause's being appended. But so long as Katusha pays on
schedule, he will have no complaint.

If there is a problem with riders' contracts it is this: riders pretend to
have an organization that represents them as a whole, but in fact each rider
negotiates his personal contract without regard to solidarity with
colleagues. I am not bleating about some good communist practice - just
observing that by regularly putting individual objectives over group ones,
the riders both diminish their collective importance and succumb, one by
one, to the seductions of dope and money.

Lastly, I will offer that most of the lawyers representing athletes have
zero interest in the general good of athletes. But you knew that.
--
Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine FR
--
"Manners are of more importance than laws.
Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend.
Manners are what vex or soothe,
corrupt or purify, exalt or debase,
barbarize or refine us, by a constant,
steady, uniform, insensible operation
like that of the air we breathe in."
E. Burke


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