[PQ]

So there has been no thread dedicated to this.

What is your opinion on the lockout?

Economics
Performance
Effects
etc.............................

Here is an e-mail I had sent to my dad and others talking about this.

Won't come as much surprise to some. How bout some of your feelings on it as well.

The last union or striking or locked out contract group that went on strike or got locked out over poor work conditions was a LONG time ago. It’s MONEY. And it’s UNLICENSED labor. Jobs that ANYONE can be trained to do. So once again the NFL owners are villains.

Guess what? It's THEIR league. Other than the Packers individual franchise, the NFL is not even publicly traded. (not that it would matter but this is a PRIVATE business)

As far as the regular officials, they act like they were perfect when they were reffing. Well they sucked too. Funny how everyone conveniently forgot how shitty the regular refs were anyway. That’s why the NFL wants full time officials. Full time officials would be much better. How good can we expect part time refs to be? I hope they all lose their plush gig for good. Over 100k for 4 months a year. Holy shit.

Basically, the NFL wants full time officials and they realize that they can get better officiating (than the regular refs) for the money they are offering. WHOA, a sound business decision…?.... how DARE they!!!

Well, this is the perfect opportunity for them to get it done.

If they were to cave and pay the locked out refs top dollar now and make them full time then it's only a matter of time before those ****ers strike for even more. If these current refs (the replacements) are made full time then the officiating will only get better. And even better than it's ever been, and more affordably. Why should a referee be ‘entitled to’ that much freaking money and benefits? Did they go to school for 8 years and do 2 years of internship to be a ref? Do they have a world class skill that can’t be found anywhere else? Did they use their knowledge and entrepreneurship skills and take the risk to start this business? Holy shit. 150k is pretty damn good money for a full time gig officiating 3 months a year. And a 401k is as good as even I could hope for. Hell, I have to do it myself. I own a freaking business with all the risks and time involved and wont' ever come close to that. Point being that they have all the freedom in the world to go work somewhere else.

In the article I linked below they talk about the NFL making 9 billion dollars ‘so they can afford to pay more’. [IMG]file:///C:\Users\RANDYA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\ 01\clip_image001.gif[/IMG] Spoken like true American crabs. I’m sick of the ‘I couldn’t get it done myself so someone who COULD get it done owes me” way of thinking.

Economy as bad as it is right now and these ****ers are complaining that the 150k in salary to ref for 16 weekends a year and practice full time is not enough. I’m thinking it doesn’t take rocket scientists to learn to be a Football ref. This is a good business decision by the NFL to make full time refs and there will be NO SHORTAGE of perfectly qualified people to do it that will be willing to do so for that kind of money. To artificially inflate the salary standard would be more stupid business. The pathetic part about it is that it’s that kind of thinking that keeps those people from making it themselves in the first place. So they pile it on others who HAVE made it happen.

Once again, people who sign checks on the back and not on the front pissed because the owners won't give up more. Me and Bonnie had half our business fortunately turnkey to us and was scary as hell to quit everything and go into debt and give it a shot. Building the other half of our business cost us almost as much as we made. And thank God we did because that’s what is keeping it running now, and in this economy it is damned expensive and takes WAY more time and money than I ever thought it would. It’s scary as hell to spend the kind of money we do just to stay in business and make little more than we did before the business. I have to try and figure out wether this type, or that type of advertising will kill us or not. And I don’t have 15k a month to advertise but I do spend about 5k per month. And this is what just keeps us going. So if I make the wrong decision on where to advertise at the wrong time it can kill us. It’s really stressful and quite scary. Now I’m not complaining because we are blessed to still be in business but for the first time in mine and Bonnies lives together we have taken a step back. Not devastatingly but our profits are only even for the first time in 3 years. It used to be positive by about 25k per year til the past 2. I’m spending at a loss to grow now. In a year or so I could literally have spent all of our 3 years of profit prior to that. I say all that to say this……….. If we ever DID make it big we could be ****ing villainized and held hostage by our employees. For all the risk and work and time and stress that we put in, we are dicks because we want to keep as much as we can? Even so, what kind of bullshit system tells me what I can and can’t do with my money? All of this time that I’m risking all of this, my future would be employees are working for someone else without much care. No risk. No betterment debt. No advertising. No overhead. Or they are still in high school or younger. And yet they can come to me years from now were I to grow huge and strike for more money. When I’m paying them pretty ****ing good already. They are already enjoying the benefits of my risk. And if I don’t pay my employees what they want then they can LEAVE. And I end up with shitty employees if I don’t pay well and my business suffers. So I have to pay fairly. THAT’s how it’s supposed to work. Well the NFL is trying to do just that. Provide better officiating (a better product) than has been given the past years and want to pay fair wages. 4 months per year for 150k is pretty freaking fair. (And anyone who still sees the profits of the NFL as so much money they should have to give more, then you are one of the problems. My opinion of course)

So, now we’ve have had Players, Refs, and Vendors ................ who else is going to blame the NFL for not giving more money away? Who else is going to hold out, strike or threaten the NFL? Who else believes the NFL has to give more?

Bottom line, just like the rest of us always had to do….. if you don’t like the pay, go ****ing work somewhere else.

So there’s my rant. I’m sick of these union leaches doing this shit. UAW just got more money, Seattle garbage just got more money, teamsters just got more money ………….. Holnam Chemical here in Lower Alabama unionized 14 months ago like a bunch of morons. It is with my great pleasure to say the company is shutting the doors here in Alabama. We may lose a client if he doesn’t find work but way to go morons. Striking for more money while unemployment is so high is reprehensible. And I hope they ALL lose their jobs for it.




http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/25/sp...ute/index.html



The money to pay officials comes from a pot of $18 million funded by the league. The NFL wants an increase in the average salary for officials, who are part-time employees, from $149,000 to $189,000 by 2018. Referees (the head officials) and officials who qualify for postseason games would make more, the league said. The raises each year would fall between 5% and 11%, the league said. The officials have asked for more, but have not publicly disclosed how much. They say the league, which has revenues of more than $9 billion per year, can afford it.