National Football League players Monday won a round in their ongoing labor dispute with management when the Supreme Court let stand a decision ordering the teams to forward $17.8 million in unpaid contributions to the players' pension fund.
The court, without comment, refused to hear an appeal by the NFL Management Council and its 28 teams to a ruling by two lower courts that the money must be paid into the fund as the league had promised in its 1982 collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players' Association.The five-year contract called for the teams to contribute $12.5 million annually into the plan "provided that such contributions are allowable as deductions" by the Internal Revenue Service.
The clubs paid the $12.5 million in 1983, but the next year paid only $7.5 million because the plan had become overfunded.