Tonight was the primary night of the annual NFL Owners Meetings, and the large topic of the night was the continued labor dispute between the league and the NFL Referees Association that represents the workers that make up the NFL’s officiating crews. In response to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, the NFL has a plan in place “to start hiring substitute officials before…May 31…if no agreement is struck with the NFLRA.”
Per Pelissero, the aim of the owners is to not be “unprepared.” Nicki Jhabvala of the Athletic adds that the league “has begun to ‘discover and recruit’ potential substitute officials from the faculty level.” The early motion post-expiration of the union’s CBA is seen as vital to be able to onboard and train the substitute officials over June and July with enough time to deploy them to training camps and the preseason. Jonathan Jones of NFL on CBS reports that negotiations with the NFLRA will only get more complicated after that time because the associated fee to onboard all of those substitute officials can be considered inside the costs of a brand new CBA.
The most up-to-date planned negotiations before the annual league meeting were presupposed to happen Wednesday in Florida, but after the NFLRA presented a counter to the league’s offer at the moment, the NFL immediately rejected it and claimed that nobody present was authorized to reply or negotiate any further at that time, in keeping with Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. The league’s representatives then promptly exited, ending the negotiations before noon. NFLRA executive director Scott Green called it “a typical negotiation tactic utilized by the league to hunt unreasonable concessions,” per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert. NFL executive vice chairman Jeff Miller’s response (via Peliserro) asserted that the NFL was “able to proceed negotiations” but accused the union of refusing “to interact in a meaningful way.”
At this point in the method, it seems the NFL has made latest offers to the NFLRA, offers that haven’t been met with much fervor. Per Jones, the league is offering a 6.45% annual “pay increase every year over the course of a six-year CBA offer,” however the officials are pushing for 10%, and it’s grow to be a important sticking point. The NFLRA can also be pushing for an extra “$2.5MM for marketing fees the league regards as worthless,” in keeping with Pelissero.
One other issue with the deal drawn up by the league concerns the NFL’s offer to make referees (but not other officials) full-time employees, per Mark Maske of The Washington Post. Pelissero reports that this offer was met with “staunch resistance” from the NFLRA. He asserts the officials’ union wants to see a pay increases “with none substantive changes to their jobs or hours and with a system that rewards seniority, not performance.”