opinion@dailylobo.com
Hallelujah, the lockout is over! The return of the regular NFL referees to the field last Thursday was a welcome relief to everyone who loves professional football. After three weeks of increasingly frantic complaints from fans, players, coaches and pundits, NFL team owners were forced to back down from their “get tough” stance with the referees and sign a new contract with the NFL Referees Association, the union that represents them.
It’s important to remember that the NFL referees weren’t on strike — they were locked out. The League locked them out back in August because the NFL wanted to re-negotiate the terms of the contract that was already in place.
A lockout is a tactic used by corporate management to shut unionized workers out of their jobs in order to force them into conceding in some way on wages or benefits. This strategy appears to have backfired in the case of the National Football League owners versus the NFLRA — big time. The prestige and integrity of the NFL was seriously damaged after several games were ruined by questionable calls from the hopelessly inept scabs.
As usual, pension plans and retirement benefits were the sticking points in the negotiations. The new eight-year deal allows current referees to keep their pensions through 2016, but will switch them over to 401(k) plans beginning in 2017 as the owners had demanded.
The NFLRA was able to delay the pension freeze the owners wanted to implement, allowing them to grandfather existing pension plans into the new deal. All of this could have been easily avoided if the greedy NFL team owners had honored the original contract and not decided to play hardball with the referees’ union. They fumbled in their own end zone when they decided to hire the scabs instead of negotiating in good faith.
Keep in mind that if the scabs hadn’t proven to be so utterly incompetent, they would all still have jobs and the NFLRA lockout wouldn’t be newsworthy. If it hadn’t been for the disastrous performance of the replacement refs, nobody would have cared about the lockout. This partial victory can only be celebrated because the dispute played out on national television before an audience of millions. The issue could no longer be ignored due to the overwhelming public outcry.
The row between the NFL owners and the NFLRA is a perfect example of why labor unions exist in the first place. The relatively happy ending for the NFLRA is the most recent example of growing corporate militancy toward labor unions in America. Lockouts used to be rare. Today, team owners are increasingly on the offensive, trying to call the shots at the bargaining table. And now they’re backing it up with action. Last year, the NBA season was delayed by two months because of a lockout. If you’re a hockey fan, you may be out of luck in 2012: the National Hockey League recently locked out its players for the second time in recent memory, despite the fact that TV revenues are healthy and the sport is growing in popularity. The owners simply refuse to share the wealth with their most important assets — the players.
The stinking rich owners of the NBA, the NHL and the NFL are following the lead of private corporations and politicians across America by taking advantage of the rabidly anti-union climate and high unemployment so they can pressure workers into accepting “austerity measures” while they rake in record profits. The team owners represent some of the worst examples of the 1 percent. In fact, they represent 0.01 percent of the 1 percent. Most of them are multibillionaires who made their fortunes off the backs of workers. Some of them are truly awful people, and they would have been perfectly happy to use prison laborers as referees if they thought it was economically feasible. The safety of the athletes isn’t even a consideration. The players, the refs, even the fans are simply a commodity.
Unions have done a lot of good things for working people in America. Labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Teamsters and United Auto Workers helped to create the middle class. Because of all the benefits unionization has provided for working men and women over the years, Republicans have tried to demonize them as part of some vague socialist agenda. Since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired the 11,345 striking Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization members, the power and influence of trade unions has been seriously diminished, along with the once-vibrant middle class. In the ‘50s, almost one in three Americans was a member of a union. Today, it’s less than one in 10.
The plutocracy has successfully undermined the ability of regular, working-class Americans to organize and demand higher pay, health benefits and better working conditions. Like the NFLRA, the average American needs a level playing field to compete. Rich folks have never cared much for us working stiffs — that’s why we decided to get together and form unions in the first place. It was the only way to make our voices heard. There’s no one left to represent the little guy anymore. Corporations are the only “people” who count.
Labor unions such as the AFL-CIO led the fight for the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which requires state agencies and private employers to provide up to 12 weeks annually of unpaid leave for workers in case of extended personal illness, to care for a seriously ill family member or to have a baby. Note that this is still unpaid leave, however. In other industrialized nations, workers get six months off or more paid maternity leave — and that goes for both parents.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
It’s infuriating that a quarter of American workers get no paid vacations or holidays at all. If you get any paid time off, it’s typically only a week or two of vacation in addition to the six traditional paid holidays per year. In the United States, there’s no legal obligation for states or private industry to provide these benefits. If you’re lucky enough to get a paid vacation, it was probably made possible through collective bargaining.
In Europe, federal laws require that all workers be entitled to the same benefits — even if you work at McDonald’s. Most western democracies also mandate a month vacation or more — and yes, it’s required leave. In some countries, you’re actually paid at a higher rate while you’re out of the office, and if you happen to get sick while on vacation, you get extra time off to make up for it. American corporations operating in Europe must provide their workers with these benefits by law. No such laws exist in the United States.
We wouldn’t even have weekends off if it weren’t for pressure from unions. At the turn of the 20th century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes and walk-outs to demand a shorter workweek. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act was finally passed, laying the groundwork for a 40-hour week and overtime pay. It also mandated the two-day weekend so that employees could spend time with their families.
All American workers should be guaranteed decent health insurance, a good pension, sick time and maternity leave. And a month at the beach doesn’t sound too bad, either.
