The NFL has two different unions with which it must negotiate labor deals. The contract with the NFL Players Association covers five more seasons. The contract with the NFL Referees Association covers none.
With the rhetoric ramping up between the league and the NFLRA — and with the league making plans to lock out the officials and once again hire rank amateurs to work games at the highest levels of the sport — the NFLPA is paying attention.
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“This is not just a labor issue between the league and officials,” the NFLPA said in a statement issued to PFT on Wednesday night. “This directly impacts the working conditions of our player members. We are closely monitoring the situation.”
The game officials are essentially the first responders when it comes to player safety. For low-level college officials and high-school officials who’ll get the replacement assignments, it’s too much to expect them to know the NFL’s rules, to apply the NFL’s rules, and to ensure that the NFL’s players are at all times protected.
The union’s statement meshes with recent comments made by incoming executive director JC Tretter with Pat McAfee.
“I’m going to talk to the refs’ union,” Tretter said. “I’ll talk to [Commissioner] Roger [Goodell], too. I’ve got to get an understanding and background information of what’s going on. They’re in negotiations now, so that’ll take time.”
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Recent negotiations imploded prematurely on Wednesday; a planned two-day effort ended after the morning session on the first day. The NFL blames the officials. The NFLRA has pushed back, blaming the NFL for sending people to the meeting who lacked the authority to negotiate.
“We support unions getting what they deserve,” Tretter said. “We want to make sure the refs get taken care of and are treated fairly. We stand with all the other unions that are fighting in collective bargaining. So we would love to help them in any way possible.”
It’s a delicate balance. Both the NFLPA and NFLRA are eating at the same trough of total dollars. Already, the league has made noise about needing to look at the current salary cap formula based on rising expenses, since the NFL covers everything associated with presenting games from their half of the roughly 50-50 revenue split. If the NFLPA pushes too hard for the NFLRA to get more, the NFL may try to take something away from the players.
Still, it makes far more sense for the two unions to work together. They’re dealing with a collection of the most rich and powerful people in the world. They’re aggressive. They’re ruthless. They’ll “partner” with their players and game officials on their own terms.
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As it relates to the negotiations between the NFL and NFLRA, it makes sense for Tretter to get up to speed on the actual issues. What’s the basis for the impasse? Who’s being reasonable? Who’s being unreasonable?
It requires cutting through the P.R. spin and getting to the nuts and bolts. What is fair? Each side will have its interpretation.
The bigger reality is that the broader officiating model is broken. The officials need to be full-time, year-round employees. Calling NFL games can’t be a part-time gig. It needs to be the only thing the game officials do.
The rest of the league treats it as the sole focus during the season, and throughout most of the offseason. The sport is too big, and the stakes are too high, for game officials to be treated as seasonal employees who spend four months balancing other jobs with a weekend trip to wherever their assigned games are.
The problem is that neither the NFL nor the NFLRA may want that. The rest of us should be demanding it.