I thought I read here much earlier that the people in charge of training the refs got fired and had to turn in there computers because they refused to train the replacements.

Yep.

You'd think the officials' best strategy would be to wait a bit, but then put pressure on early in the season when the replacements blow some games.

This is all part of the NFL becoming a huge monster though. The NFL signs all these contracts worth billions of dollars, and everyone wants their piece. It's why the owners locked out the players, now the refs are doing this.

Well said....and dis-allow the NFLRA while they're at it, seriously why do they need a freaking Association of their own. They are referee's for cripes sakes and letting them have the stupid NFLRA allows stupid crap like them holding out to happen.

The refs can fist themselves.

Either they want their careers as lawyers and the like, or they want to be officials at the highest level of the most popular sport in America.

Also they need to decide to enforce rules on a consistent basis.

No, this is mostly a battle over guaranteed lifetime pension benefits, which is something that all private businesses are moving away from because of the carnage that it costs as people live longer.

Full time NFL employees (front office, players, etc.) don't get this, so why should part time refs get this?

Right, they shouldn't.

I'm going to really, REALLY hate replacement refs, but I don't give a damn about the regular refs if they're sticking to their guns on this (and they are, it's apparently one of the biggest sticking points).

Really? What's your definition of a "rich professional"?

Everything I've ever heard says that the NFL referees have to keep their full-time jobs because they don't get paid enough by the NFL to BE full-time officials.

It took less than 30 seconds to find this with Google:

SPORT..........AVERAGE SALARY OF OFFICIALS
NFL..............Between $25K and $70K
MLB..............$141K
NBA..............$128K
NHL..............$139K

It doesn't sound like the referees are the ones at fault here. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar business. I think they can afford full-time referees.

You don't seem to understand labor laws too well. Federal law lets them form a union. Nothing the NFL can do to stop it.

That is true, but there are ways for them to let it be known that they will not negotiate or settle with a Unionized work force. Companies do it all the time.

Yeah, but the season is the shortest length wise and number of games.

I equate this situation to this...same bad idea

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191397/

That's a terrible argument. You don't base an employee's salary on the number of hours he works. You base it upon the value the position has to the organization.

Would you advocate paying NFL players one-tenth of what MLB players make? After all, they only play 16 games in football. In baseball they play 162. Obviously baseball players should make 10 times as much as football players!

This is the NFL, not some small shipping company or whatever. Hell, labor lawyers might take a heavy discount on their normal fees to sue the NFL and get the vast free publicity that such a case would give. The NFL would get toasted.

"You don't base an employee's salary on the number of hours he works"

I think that is generally part of the equation. What you are essentially saying is that someone who works a weekend doing the same job that someone else does 5 days a week should be compensated exactly the same?

The refs are fighting AGAINST being full-time

the NFL wants some full-time refs

what do those numbers break down PER game?