Greedy team owners, apparently shaken by public outrage over bad calls by scab referees during the first three weeks of the National Football League season, have agreed to let a little more of their enormous wealth trickle down to the referees union:
The locked-out NFL officials will return to work Thursday. The league announced a settlement was reached late Wednesday with the NFL Referees Association, which had been locked out for three months.
It is an eight-year deal, the NFL announced. Union members will vote on ratification on Friday.
The NFL and its referees strike a deal. Word comes two days after a controversial call made by a replacement ref in Monday night’s Packers-Seahawks game gave the story national exposure.Thursday’s game between the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore will be the first game worked this season by union members, as the league lifted its lockout.
Greg Aiello, the NFL’s public relations man, reported via Twitter at about midnight ET that an agreement had been reached…
I’m sure the TV announcers — those glib, well-groomed ex-players in extra-large suits — heaved a huge sigh of relief at news of the deal. They will no longer be in the awkward position of having to implicitly criticize their masters by pointing out that the scab refs were destroying the credibility of the league.
Footnote: Don’t you wish the American public could direct some outrage at the Republican scum who are trying to break the unions of schoolteachers, firefighters, and other essential public servants?
Too bad the players didn’t honor the fact the refs were locked out and refused to cross picket lines….. Were there any picket lines? Can a locked out union then picket?
NFL players like most professional athletes are part of the 1%. If they don’t play they don’t get the big pay. There concern is themselves, me, mine. It’s the fans who are the problem in all of this. Had all of the stadiums been empty of fans on opening day the strike would have ended then. But the fans are lead around by the nose by the 1% when it comes to professional sports in the same way they are lead around by the nose in everyday life. If you allow the 1% to shit on you then the 1% will shit on you.