[新聞] Refs expecting Oct. 1 lockout
http://ppt.cc/Ifcf By Marc Stein ESPN.com
The lead negotiator and spokesman for NBA referees announced Thursday that
the referees expect to be locked out when exhibition play starts Oct. 1 after
contract negotiations with the league broke down this week.
Lamell McMorris, in a press release, also asserts that the NBA has begun to
contact replacement referees to work in the preseason and perhaps the early
part of the regular season.
NBA lead negotiator Rick Buchanan, in response, said Thursday that talks
collapsed because the referees' union changed its mind after agreeing to
accept the league's proposals on retirement benefits. Buchanan added that
"all the union has offered to us is minimal concessions that are neither
consistent with economic reality nor with the information it is currently
distributing to the media."
The statements were issued in the wake of an ESPN.com report Tuesday, when
the latest negotiating session between the referees and league executives
came to an abrupt end in New York, significantly increasing the possibility
that replacement refs will be needed in the NBA for the first time since the
1995-96 season.
"We understand that everyone in the country is facing tough times, but the
NBA is continuing to make money, sign large marketing and television
contracts and expand their business internationally," McMorris said. "We have
attempted to negotiate in good faith and give substantial cuts to get the
referees back to work."
In Thursday's editions of the New York Times, McMorris said he was
"frustrated and disappointed at the unprofessional and disrespectful manner
in which Mr. Stern ended what was a productive negotiating session" on
Tuesday. McMorris also echoed the growing belief that Stern is taking a hard
line with referees "to send a message to the players," whose own labor
contract with the NBA expires during the 2010-11 season.
In a separate interview with the Times, Stern told the newspaper that
negotiations with the referees have "nothing to do with the player
negotiations" and insisted that Tuesday's talks, as Buchanan said, collapsed
because McMorris' union reneged on previously agreed-upon facets of a new
contract.
Said Buchanan on Thursday: "Everyone at the NBA has a great deal of respect
and admiration for our referees. With that said, the actions and statements
of their union over the past 24 hours have been extremely disappointing.
Personal attacks and inaccurate assertions in the media are hardly
constructive methods of bridging differences or ultimately making a new
agreement.
"It is and has always been our goal to reach a new collective bargaining
agreement with the referees that is fair and appropriate, and we remain
hopeful this can still be accomplished prior to the start of what promises to
be another exciting NBA season."
The NBA's contract with its referees expired Sept. 1, but no further talks
are scheduled between the sides with only 20 days before the league's Oct. 1
exhibition opener (Denver at Utah).
Asked if the dispute can be resolved before the season starts, Stern told the
Times: "Right now, I'm not optimistic."
ESPN.com reported Aug. 25 that the league is seeking an across-the-board
reduction of 10 percent to a referee budget that costs an estimated $32
million. In his statement Thursday, McMorris said that the referees have
proposed a reduction to the budget of $2.5 million, which includes freezing
salaries for the 2009-10 season in addition to reducing travel costs by 15
percent and per diem by 7 percent.
"In our proposal, we sought reductions in the NBA's referee program expenses
consistent with cuts we have made in other areas of our business -- all in
response to the current economic climate," Buchanan said. "At the same time,
we sought to soften the impact of these changes on the referees by preserving
their existing levels of salary and playoff compensation and agreeing to a
two-year term that would provide them with another opportunity to negotiate
in the near future if the economy improves."
One source with knowledge of the league's thinking has openly questioned the
referees' leverage, telling ESPN.com last month and reiterating this week
that he expects the refs -- in this depressed economy -- to ultimately accept
the additional reduction from $2.5 million to $3.2 million when faced with
the reality of not working.
The referees have scheduled a meeting in Chicago next week to discuss their
next steps, with their annual training camp in New Jersey -- scheduled to
start Sept. 20 -- on hold.
It appears more likely that the league will be setting up a training camp for
replacement referees for the first time since the 1995-96 season, when refs
were locked out for more than two months before reaching an agreement to
return to work in December 1995.
Two current vets refs, Bill Kennedy and former NBA player Leon Wood, are
notable examples of 1995 replacement referees who wound up working in the
league full time.
The referees have argued against the severity of a 10-percent budget cut by
insisting that the late hours they work and difficult travel conditions they
endure -- in addition to the injury risks and daily scrutiny they're
subjected to -- make them unlike any other group of NBA employees. The refs'
union has also protested the reductions by questioning the raises it says
have been awarded to three senior league officials in New York -- Ron
Johnson, Bernie Fryer and Joe Borgia -- who oversee the referee program.
McMorris also represents Major League Baseball umpires, whose labor contract
expires Dec. 31. But the baseball negotiations, in the words of president of
the umpires' union Joe West, are on track "to get a deal done well in advance
of that date."
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