I see some folks feeling sorry for these guys, “They are trying their best, they are just in over their heads.” “Give them a break, they are being intimidated.”
Fuck’em I say. They are scabs, plain and simple, they suck at refereeing and at life.
Call them whatever derogatory name you want, but they are the only people available that are remotely qualified to keep the show going and the show must go on. The fact that they aren’t as good as the regular refs is helping the cause. I can’t fault anyone for trying something they have always wanted to do while giving themselves and tens of thousands of others work during these tough times.
What is the alternative? Cancel the season anytime the referees or locker room janitors aren’t happy with some part of their contract? This isn’t France.
OK, now that you’ve posted this here, and in every other NFL thread I’ve come across this afternoon, do you feel better? Everyone now knows that you’d prefer to call them scabs. Noted. Granted. Understood. Can we move on to the grownup part of the conversation now?
I don’t know the specifics of what the refs are asking for, but it doesn’t sound like it is any big deal.
So the existing refs are available and more than remotely qualified. The NFL has the option of paying them and getting them back to work.
It’s not like the NFL is in any danger of not being profitable, especially after they just reduced the player’s percentage of revenue.
This is the grownup part of the conversation.
You’re definitely right. For instance, just the other day, while discussing a problematic situation with a vendor, our CMO stopped the ongoing meeting and called a side meeting to let us know how important it was that we call the vendor’s employees “doodyheads” as often as possible.
Right, the important conversation is how important the game is and it must go on and how the poor wittle “replacement refs” are just doing their best to undermine the real referees position. You know what scabs are used for and why they are called scabs? They are not innocent in this, they are willing pawns of the owners. They are garbage.
OK, man, whatever. You want to use knee-jerk, divisive language over this situation, that’s your call. As you have probably noticed in the eleventy-five other threads where you’ve tried to get this “call 'em jerkyjerks!” thing going, most are able to see the reasons why shouting “scab!” at this particular group of men is misguided and tone-deaf.
Yes. If the pay isn’t fair, why should one side get to continue to do business with little consequence? A business is a mutual cooperation between management and labor. If one side is unhappy, they should have to negotiate and come to terms so that both sides are happy. I’m fine with any labor organization being able to shut down any business with a strike. Besides, its not really a strike, its a lockout. The owners decided they didn’t like the proposed deal and prevented the refs from working. The result may be the same as a strike, but it matters who initiated the work disruption
Let’s break this down:
Who are the replacements helping:
- Themselves and their families
- Tens of thousands of people that have jobs that depend on the NFL season and their families.
- Sport fans
- The team owners
Who are they hurting:
- Arguably the regular referees and their families although they could be helping their case in the long-term.
The ‘garbage’ score comes out strongly negative on that one. I am not seeing it.
They are scabs if you are pro-union, but they are replacements if you aren’t. Simple as that.
Then you are fucking retarded.
How about letting the regular officials do the officiating? The officials didn’t walk off their jobs. It was the league that told them they couldn’t work while the negotiations were going on.
Also, as I understand it, the NFL wants more refs on the “bench” (so to speak) in order to be able to punish/fire refs who they feel are doing a poor job. So, if a ref makes some bad calls they can bench the guy and pull another to work in his place.
Personally I think $9,000/game is insanely generous. $150,000/year to work 17 days (not including post season and 17 because while each team gets one by-week the refs still work that week)? Each game is about 3 hours long so that works out to about $3,000/hour which is an awesome salary by most anyone’s measure. Granted they have to study the rule books and have meetings and what not so there are more hours in there than just game-time but still…
Certainly the job they do is difficult but I am hard pressed to feel sorry that they are not getting “more”. Seems to me the pay they currently receive is already mighty generous.
They’re also hurting the game. This is why I won’t buy a car built by scabs. You’re hoping that the white collar guys that come down from the offices (and the scabs they hire) can build cars as well as the union guys picketing the plant. You simply get an inferior product with scabs.
The team owners are locking out the referees to save $65K/year per team. Because giving referees too much money will set a dangerous precedent (NFL referees make about 70% what referees in the NHL make).
Just give them some more money and put the regular refs back in the game.
On the plus side, I am looking forward to the first bench clearing all out brawl at an NFL game.
I’m confused, will Iran nuke Israel if a bad call gets made? Will a million Chinese orphans die if the wrong team wins? We’re still talking about a game where people wear tight pants and throw and kick a ball around the field, right? It’s silly to care about something that you yourself aren’t even taking an active part in.
It’s not just the pay, though. As I understand it, there are other changes the NFL wants to make: eliminating the pension setup in favor of a 401(k), and requiring the officials to be full-time and not part-time employees. That said, yep, the current officials had a pretty sweet deal with big pay AND a pension plan for their part-time job. On the face of it, I don’t see what the NFL wants being all that terrible.
But on the other hand, giving the officials EVERYTHING they want would only cost the league something like 3.5 million a year. While that's a lot to me, that's probably less than the NFL budget for bottled water in their skyboxes each year. It's really a pittance when you look at how fantastically profitable the NFL is, and it makes the owners look like greedy Uncle Moneybags with the monocle and the gold-plated bathroom fixtures and the bags with the on them.
And remember, the officials would have kept working during negotiations. It’s the NFL that locked them out, thinking “finding replacement officials will be a breeze!” and they’d be able to put pressure on the regular officials, thinking their jobs might actually be in jeopardy. Now it’s the league’s image that’s in jeopardy. Methinks things have backfired a bit on Ol’ Uncle Moneybags.
The same argument can be made about atheletes. Which was precisely the owner’s viewpoint back in the day when athletes were paid well by most standards but not outrageous sums of money. Then the athletes organized and, well, they get paid better today.
Sure, you can say “But that’s different. An athlete is a highly trained individual with a particular skill set. And the athlete puts butts in the seats and therefore provides money to the owners. Also, an athlete is there on the field winning games.”
I think the last few weeks have helped to show that athletes aren’t the only ones that’s applicable towards. There’s no arguing that it’s a highly skilled position that not everyone can jump into. Refs indirectly put butts in the seat and eyes on the game because people tune out when the games become a crapshoot like has happened these past three weeks. Finally, what we’ve learned is that refs ARE out there winnings and losing games and what you’re paying the big bucks for is so that the game is properly called and the correct teams win and lose the game.
With their officiating the replacements are actually helping the real refs anyways. They are demonstrating in a rather convincing fashion that the real refs are uniquely in possession of the skills required to officiate NFL games. If the NFL wants to purchase adequate officiating, they have to talk to the refs’ union, cuz ain’t nobody else got what they’re trying to buy.
Yeah, fuck those scabs! What, they think they can just enter the marketplace and out-compete the incumbents, who were given their positions by divine providence? Where do they think this is, America?! Where do they get the audacity to try to feed their families when they know someone else out there wants more money for the same job?! Those socialist bastards!