Posted under Political Philosophy & Sports
Everyone is whining about the “replacement” refs. Well a good way to show your displeasure would be to start calling them what they really are, scabs.
I know that most conservatives don’t have much use for unions, which is understandable given the tendency of organized labor in America to support the Democrat Party. Theoretically, conservatives shouldn’t have anything against collective bargaining. The problem is that the historical context in which unions arose in this country was leftist and they have largely remained so. One could envision a not necessarily leftist populist framework for labor unions, and I am sure some of the original motivation for them was more populist in nature (standing up for the little guy against the Man), but they were quickly co-opted.
That said, there are just some things a man doesn’t do. And taking another man’s job while he is in a dispute with his employer and trying to better his lot in life is one of them. And in the case of the NFL refs, they aren’t even on a strike of their own doing. They have been locked out by the Fat Cat owners. I place being a scab in the same moral category as being a rat. You’re saving your own skin at the expense of the other guy.
Also, is there a bigger douche bag on the planet than Roger Goodell? The scab refs are going to “improve” the NFL, you see.
C Bowen (Hawthorne) on 23 Aug 2012 at 10:38 pm #
Red;
I am not sure if you caught the whole story on this, but the fraternity of football ref’s, hardly an organized “labor union” in the modern sense, basically said if you take an NFL job, you cannot ref this season–this is insured that say, the best DIII football refs did not take an NFL job.
No one is ‘saving their skin’ more just collecting a pay check.
If someone gave me a call and asked me to be a ref for a pro-football game, well, it would be a tough call to raise the SOLIDARITY sign.
Pinkerton detective on 24 Aug 2012 at 12:04 am #
Wrong; scabs are heroes for standing up against the parasitic unions. The football refs should have no rights for daring to stand up against their managerial betters. I wish the refs would protest and be massively arrested like strikers in the 1890s, when even the Democratic Party were truly conservatives like Gver Cleveland. What’s wrong with even paleo conservatism today?
pinksheet panther on 24 Aug 2012 at 1:57 am #
Normally I agree with you Red, but these refs get paid plenty. 80 grand a year to officiate 15 or 20 football games a year seems reasonable to me. I find it hard to believe that NFL referees are that much more elite than the thousands of college and high school refs. I sure would love to get paid that much money to work 30 days a year.
I’m not really anti-union but from any kind of supply and demand perspective, it just doesn’t make sense for the NFL to cater to any sort of wrangling from this group.
RedPhillips on 24 Aug 2012 at 2:03 am #
“No one is ‘saving their skin’ more just collecting a pay check.”
I know. My point was making the comparison between being a rat and being a scab.
RedPhillips on 24 Aug 2012 at 2:07 am #
pinksheet, that all may be true, but it is neither here nor there to my point. My point is that it is low down to scab. The economics of the situation are irrelevant.
pinksheet panther on 24 Aug 2012 at 2:29 am #
Well, that’s one way to look at it, Red. Another way though is that some people just don’t know how good they’ve got it. I have scabbed before so I might be biased. In some competitive industries, if you see an opening you just have to take it, and that’s the only way to get a break. Everyone has their own dreams. If I was a basketball player that couldn’t quite make the nba, stuck in some third rate city league, but the players went on strike and I had a chance to play…I would go for it. If that’s low, then so be it. I think unions are important when it comes to worker safety and being able to stick together to address certain issues, but when they start nitpicking over minor points in contracts which are already generous, it’s time to move the company to Alabama.
roho on 24 Aug 2012 at 2:47 am #
Good for you Red!……The problem with this argument is that 99% of the opinionated, have only seen one side of the argument? I started as a first class welder in the United Steel Workers Of America, became a Chairman for the Union for the Contracting Out Committee, and then transitioned to the corporate world as a straight commission sales rep………..That’s a real transition for those that didn’t catch it?
Stockholders and Ceos have always been entrenched in collective bargaining!…….Anyone that don’t realise that is stupid. Their primary goal is to reduce labor cost,, and increase stockholder’s profits. There was a time in America when a new hire could give a forman a bottle of whiskey and get an existing employee’s job!…….The battle between greedy elitist and serfs has existed since the middleages, and collective bargaining in the fifties corrected it.
However, the Civil Rights Movement screwed it all up, by creating programs for negroes that they did not deserve……Unions did not do it, but LBJ did!…….And it has been a mess, as a result ever since!
Weaver on 07 Sep 2012 at 4:28 pm #
Pinkerton detective,
Labour Unions abuse their power in the US, but big business also abuses its power.
It’s the lack of labour solidarity that’s allowed big business to flood the US with labour, while shipping jobs overseas.
If Wal-Mart can negotiate for cheaper prices via it’s size, or groups like Food Buying Clubs unite to buy inexpensively; then there’s no reason labour can’t do the same.
Capitalism naturally leads to monopoly, which means the big guys consume everything around them until they can strangle the market.
If high union wages eventually ruin their employers, so too do the short-term policies of big business. Unions are no better or worse than big business.
There isn’t this saintly free market guiding the economy as people dream. Some defend their interests; some abuse their power; and some don’t. You’re either in the fight, or not. The ideal is government to manage the system well to ensure each faction doesn’t abuse its power.
Weaver on 07 Sep 2012 at 4:30 pm #
Government managing an economy isn’t socialism either. Socialism means the government is the economy, owns and controls everything.
A government, however, is supposed to maintain order.
You cannot have free individuals trading freely in chaos. They’ll end up killing and enslaving one another.
We are not interchangeable parts in the function of the machine | Conservative Heritage Times on 26 Sep 2012 at 8:58 pm #
[...] stuff has hit the fan when it comes to the NFL lockout of the regular officials. Not only did the scabs make a bad call in a NFL contest, par for the course, but they made one which cost a team a game. [...]