ILRies Learn from NFL Pro
JC Tretter ’13 returned to the ILR School lecture hall Monday where he learned how to think critically, understand others’ perspectives and negotiate – skills he has wielded to help shape the labor-management dynamic in America’s most-watched sport.
Drafted by the NFL a month before he graduated from Cornell, Tretter played for the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns. He served four years as the National Football League Players Association president and started this week as the union's chief strategy officer.
On Monday, in front of more than 300 ILR first-year and transfer students in Associate Professor Adam Seth Litwin’s “Introduction to ILR” course in Ives 305, he shared how his education supported his leadership journey into a space dominated by billionaire team owners.
The course exposes students to the school’s one-of-a-kind curriculum, in part by hosting guests like Tretter who are actively shaping the evolution of work and employment.
Tretter said the first thing he did when he ran for president was contact a fellow ILRie who worked for a teachers’ union for advice.
“Get to know your classmates. They are going to go on to accomplish incredible things,” he said.
Tretter began as union president the same month the nation shut down due to COVID-19. “I really had to figure it out. I’m a 30-year-old with no experience. It’s really easy to think, ‘I’m not supposed to be here,’” he said.
“You’re going to enter rooms as the youngest person, the person with the least experience, but you deserve to be there,” Tretter told students.
Tretter said he relied on what he learned at ILR because, due to the pandemic, he didn’t receive typical onboarding. Being highly prepared and participating in every COVID-related call helped him negotiate, for instance, getting players 100% of their salaries throughout the pandemic.
Tretter created the NFL Team Report Cards for players to compare working conditions between teams and, hopefully, to raise league standards.
When the general public was allowed to take a peek behind the curtain via the cards, he said, an owner complained the report cards were just a form of public shaming. Tretter recalled telling him, “If what you’re feeling is embarrassment, then you should change what you’re doing.”
Another issue Tretter and the union are pushing for is locker room privacy. Reporters are present when players are in various states of undress. “It would not be normal in any other line of work. We’re at our workplace, and our changing rooms are being used for interviews while players are naked?”
Tretter said it’s important for NFL players to support other workers, recalling a Los Angeles rally he spoke at on behalf of bakers striking for a dollar-an-hour raise. “You can’t tell me that a group of 70% non-English-speaking women have more leverage than NFL players going against billionaire owners, but they took a stand to demand what they believed was fair. We need to lend our voice and platform to other unions whenever we can.”