Scott Fujita is hurting. And Scott Fujita is angry.

The 32-year-old Cleveland Browns linebacker, NFLPA member, and former Golden Bear has smarting knees, an aching back, and chronic neck problems which he is not afraid to talk about. But worst of all, he has a pesky cadre of NFL owners steadfast in opposing his former union’s stance.

On Wednesday, in an event put on by the UC-Berkeley Labor Center, a three man panel called “LOCKOUT: Dynamics of Collective Bargaining in Professional Sports” took place in the Club Room at Haas Pavilion. The event was meant to explicate the protracted labor negotiations between the NFL’s owners and players which, at the moment, are in a full-blown lockout waiting on litigation to play out.

Fujita did his best to untangle the messy labor dispute with his fellow panelists Peter Olney, the organizing director of the ILWU, and Professor William B. Gould IV of Stanford Law.

There is no denying that the dispute is messy. With issues as far ranging as a proposed 18-game schedule, to how to divide up a $9 billion dollar revenue pie, to post-career health care, one can imagine how federally arbitrated negotiations went from a façade of civility to poisonous in the blink of an eye.

However, yesterday was not about objectivity. From the moment Fujita opened his mouth, one could tell that underneath his well-groomed exterior, a seething anger towards the NFL ownership boiled away like a ticking time bomb.

“I feel like hell, [but] do I expect people to feel sorry for me? Absolutely not,” Fujita said after running through his litany of injuries.

But Fujita does want NFL fans and aspiring NFL athletes to know what is at stake.

“If Jerry Jones called us ‘products’ one more time I would throw a chair through the window,” Fujita said of the CBA negotiations in Washington in which he partook.

Fujita came off as a consummate humanist. A long-time activist and political advocate, he seemed genuinely more concerned with his fellow players’ health and well-being than lining his own pockets.

After Professor Gould waded through the Byzantine waters of labor and anti-trust law, Fujita embarked on a story about a former New Orleans Saints teammate who, at 33 years-old, was diagnosed with ALS. To Fujita, this dispute is more about “brotherhood” than money. Indeed, the issue which he says is “non-negotiable” is not the $1 billion the owners are asking for, but improving health and safety for the players.

“Players in all sports should embrace that platform,” Fujita said of his speaking out so forcefully. “I always look at it as you have a very unique window of time to say something you believe in. So if I have a chance to stand up for something I believe in, I’m going to do that, and I encourage other guys to do the same thing.”

All the speakers waxed poetic about solidarity, union density, and overall nostalgia for a bygone era of organized labor’s preeminence. Indeed, the event was an exercise in blue-collar indignation wrapped in a billion-dollar business’ exterior.

Yet, in a world where athletes make inane comments about slavery and Osama Bin Laden, to hear Fujita’s lucid, pro-labor acumen was refreshing. Far from a battle between billionaires and millionaires, like President Obama has painted the dispute, Fujita and Gould made a compelling argument for the players’ legitimate concerns.

After hearing the panel, one could not have left Haas without sympathy for the players and a growing belief in the owner’s own duplicity.

Original Article