The NFL Referee Lockout

So, it's the first Sunday of the 2012 NFL season and, not one week after Labor Day (the day we're supposed to celebrate workers in this country, even if anti-capitalists like Eric Cantor can't quite grok that fact), the league will have Scab Referees calling the games today. The NFL owners have locked out the regular, unionized referees in order to obtain some leverage in new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations. Notably, the owners want the refs to accept a gradual move away from pensions and a slower rate of increases in pay.

One thing to keep in mind here: this is a lockout, not a strike. A lot of fans conflate the two, and that's wrong. A lockout is an aggressive move by the owners to keep the workers from, well, working, even though they're willing to do so. A strike is when the workers affirmatively decide to stop working in order to force the owners' hands. The moves are roughly mirror images of each other, but the agressor party is different; in this case, it's the owners escalating the conflict.

Anyway, the replacement refs. They've been getting some withering criticism. They're mocked for having little experience- one was drummed out of the lingerie league, one admitted he's better at calling six man football (and how often does THAT skill really get used?), one is a labor lawyer by day (!!!). Their on-the-field performance has been roughly what you'd expect from such inauspicious backgrounds. They show little grasp of the rules, a poor sense for how the game develops, and trouble in front of crowds and cameras.

Of course, to be fair to them, calling a football game is really hard; the rules are numerous and complicated, the action is fast, the offending actions are small and subtle. There's intense pressure from crowds of angry fans, to say nothing of 300 pound linesmen who'd been told all week to "GET MEAN!" for this game.

All of which kinda points out why it's important to have referees- and any worker, really- with some kind of demonstrated ability to handle the job- in other words, the regular, unionized refs.

That's not to say that the regular, unionized refs are infallible, or that even the worst regular ref would be better than the best scab ref. It's just to say that if you're looking for someone who can handle a difficult job, the person who currently holds that job is probably a good place to start your search. With the unionized refs, you can expect a certain skill level; most of them have been here before, often for a very long time, they've built up relationships with other refs, the league, and other football institutions, and have access to resources necessary to improve their skills. This doesn't mean they're all good; but it means we can hold them more accountable if they're not. They've kind of got no excuse. On the other hand, when you've got a guy who couldn't even keep a job in the lingerie league, his fuck ups come with a "Well, What Did You Expect?" issue.

That being said, I understand why the unionized refs are having trouble marshaling public opinion to their side here. For all the fan's bitching about the scab refs, it's not like they think much better of unionized refs. In every sport, we only notice the refs when they fuck up- and thanks to football's voluminous, complicated rules, there's plenty of opportunities for that, even with the best of refs. Moreover, the refs are fighting for pensions, and if you're in the private sector, like me, that kinda comes off like fighting for a right to sex with supermodels. I'll probably never have a pension myself, so why should I be upset that anyone else doesn't get one?

I get that, but there's a simple answer- pensions make the world a better place. The more people who have a stable, sustainable retirement, the more stable and just this country's going to be. The less people who have to suffer in their twilight years, the less strain that's going to be put on our public institutions. Thus, even if I'm not going to have a great retirement (And if you're really concerned, I'll tell you where to mail the checks), I'm still going to benefit from the better world that will result from somone getting a good retirement. I understand that they get a benefit that I don't, and that that's not fair; the thing is, I don't see why the logical conclusion is that I should be agitating for that benefit to be taken away from them; I should be agitating to get that benefit for myself, too.

(And if you're noticing that this same argument can be applied to, well, most union disputes right now, such as Illinois' argument over public worker pensions, give yourself a Gold Star for the day. Or a Red Star, if you listen to Paul Ryan.)

Of course, not every employer can afford to give its employees are useful pension. I get that, there are economic realities here. But this is the NFL we're talking about, an $XXX billion dollar industry. It can afford a little long-term planning for its employees. And I'm not in the mood to stand against the referees for having the courage to demand such a thing when bargaining for their services, even if I don't.

The Most Obvious Story In The World

The MLB Umpire's Union is the biggest source of opposition to wider use of instant replay in baseball and is specifically holding up elements of the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement that would have expanded it. Well, of course, right? It's good to have this story published (good reporting from Jayson Stark, great analysis from Rob Neyer), but it's hardly surprising that umpires are doing all they can to protect their power, prestige, and, oh yeah, jobs themselves.

Not that I have a whole lot of sympathy for the umpires. I don't have much interest in preserving anyone's power for it's own sake. And all the "human element" arguments are garbage- mistakes are not a selling point of the game. No one buys a ticket or changes the channel to a ballgame in hopes of seeing a blown call, or even with a bemused acceptance that one's going to happen. Indeed, the point of umpires is to minimize the number of factors- outside of skill and strategy- that can influence the outcome of the game. Preserving "human error"'s ability to do so is hilariously self-contradictory.

As for their jobs- I don't think there's reason to worry. There's still hundreds- thousands?- of things that have to be decided in a baseball game. No one wants instant replay on all of them, no one wants a computer deciding all of them. There will still be jobs for decades to come.

As for their job being harder- that's a simple matter for the rule book. Take foul balls- the rule book can mandate that an overturned foul call results in a runner at...well, whatever base makes the most sense.

And if that doesn't work, or if there's other plays that can't be so easily legislated, well, why does an umpire's job need to be easy, exactly? There's supposed to be a skill and a craft to it, a reason not just anyone can do it. Otherwise, what's the argument that umpires are necessary at all?

So, c'mon, umpires. Tighten your shit up. You're missing a great game over here!

Two more thoughts on this story:

1) This is kind of the hilarious darkside of my prior post on unions in sports. Major League Baseball can't move on something it knows it needs to do- it has, in fact, already agreed to do- because a union has a seat at the table. Which is a pretty good argument against giving a union an unchecked veto, but a pretty shitty argument against unions as a whole.

2) That it's the umpires holding up instant replay in the name of protecting their own jobs instead of the Traditionalists in the name of...err...tradition is actually a good sign, too. Not that we really should have thought Selig was in the Traditionalists' pocket (the very concept of Interleague Play pretty much disproves that), but still, that a union has more of a say over the game than the Glossy-Eyed sportswriters who long for the ill-defined "good ol' days" of the game? I'll take it.

UNION FOREVER!

This is an interesting little bit of symmetry: The NFL referees' union has been locked out by the owners, and I'm writing it up on the night that the odious Scott Walker faces a recall from Wisconsin voters.

Walker kinda handily symbolizes the declining fortunes of unions and collective bargaining across the U.S. I'm sure you've heard it all before- union membership has been on a decades long decline in this country, and the unions that are left are generally weaker. Fewer and fewer people even have the opportunity to join a union.

And that sucks; we all have the right to bargain for the best deal possible for our labor, and that often means banding together. We're stronger together than we are apart, and we should have the opportunity to use that strength. Anyone who disagrees isn't just wrong and a reactionary; they're actually anti-capitalist.

But what's really amazing is that major U.S. sports seem to have avoided this decline. Obviously, every player in the team sports belongs to a union; the biggest sport without a union appears to be golf (and it's even thought about it). Much of the support staff is unionized, too- the refs, as we said. Even the hot dog venders, for crying out loud.

Granted, these unions don't always win every fight they get into (although the MLBPA has been stunningly successful over the years, especially when Marvin Miller was in charge), but just the fact that they still command a seat at every table displays a strength most unions have lost in this country.

I'd love to know why that is. My best guess is that the major sports naturally encourage teamwork in a way that makes union appeals particularly strong, and that players are, as a whole, much harder to replace that workers- in some ways, the players are the product (i.e.- you go to a sporting event to see the players, but you buy a car just to have a car). This is all only a guess, though. If anyone has any stronger data, I'd love to take a look at it.

Whatever the reason, it's actually another thing I love about sports. Right now, the exit polls indicate that Walker is going to pull out this election, and continue to be an abysmal failure until 2014. It's nice to have a little island of organized hope.