CFLPA second vice president Solomon Elimimian continues to preach unity and solidarity among the union’s membership.

To All CFL players: pic.twitter.com/673hQjvHW5 — Solomon Elimimian (@SolomonE56) April 22, 2019

Elimimian has been at all the collective bargaining agreement meetings which began in Toronto. There were five sets of two-day talks until the CFL unilaterally decided to delay negotiations until April 29.

“I want to emphasize when you get a deal done it’s both sides working together. It can’t be us banging on their door and saying we want to negotiate and get a deal done. It has to be reciprocated in the same fashion,” Elimimian said.

“We’ve totally revamped our negotiating committee, our players reps, association format and we focused on this moment for the last four years. It is frustrating but that’s to be expected, a lot of collective bargainings are frustrating but we feel like we can get a deal done. We prepared for every situation.”

The CFLPA’s bargaining committee instructed players via a memo not to arrange travel to the league’s member clubs for training camp. The union informed players that the association does not intend to work past May 18th unless a new CBA can first be agreed upon. The players are holding a strike vote on Wednesday to be ensure the membership is in agreement about the potential of not reporting to training camp.

The current CBA expires on May 18, ending a five-year agreement that was ratified on June 13, 2014 – nearly a month after the original deadline. Players reported to training camp in May of 2014 without a CBA in place, which hurt the CFLPA’s leverage in negotiations. Elimimian and the players’ association is unwilling to make that mistake again.