Members of the locked-out Professional Soccer Referees Association (PSRA), the labor union representing match officials in Major League Soccer, picketed Wednesday in New York City in front of MLS and Professional Referee Organization (PRO) headquarters. “We want a little bit more respect from the league, players and our organization,” said Brian Dunn, an MLS referee since 2012, who was on the picket line. “We do so much for them, between travel and training, we just want to be paid fairly for what we do for them.”
On Saturday, PRO locked out MLS referees after 96% of PSRA members rejected a proposed labor pact. Members of the union stated the proposed deal “would leave them without improvements officials needed to see in compensation and benefits, travel, scheduling” and other issues. “This is their weak attempt to apply economic pressure, and MLS is sacrificing the quality of the game to do that,” Peter Manikowski, president and lead negotiator for PSRA, said in a statement. “We call it like it is - and this is a foul.” According to PSRA, the MLS/PRO offer they rejected would have benefited few officials, not the whole membership. Currently, MLS referees on the high end of the wage scale make $90,000 base salary and $1,300 per match, the union said. In Germany, Manikowski said officials are paid approximately $108,000 (€100,000) base per season and $5,400 (€5,000) per match. The union also says that some MLS officials are paid $2,000 for off-field work commitments. A proposed increase to $4,000 does not capture the refs’ added workload and does not remotely keep up with the revenue growth in MLS, the union said. MLS/PRO’s offer would have kept travel benefits for the nearly 500 regular season matches each year mostly unchanged from five years ago. The union claims the offer did not provide a proper health care plan or cost-effective benefits to 70 of the officials, either. “We have asked the company for additional dates to bargain, but we have not received an answer back,” Manikowski said in a phone call. “You got guys like Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets, and that’s the first game of the season and you have someone who has never refereed in a professional game before, it should be interesting,” Dunn said. (Source: Sportico)
Since the start of the last CBA in 2019, MLS has expanded from 24 teams to 29 and between that and a new playoff format, the number of games the league has hosted rose from 408 in 2019 to 493 in 2023. The PSRA believes the demands on match officials have only increased as a result, and that the PRO's latest offer did not reflect that. "Anyone that's been following the league has seen the great things that have been happening - star players, new teams coming in, sponsorship deals, so it seems like everything is on an upbeat," he said. "We just feel like we're not being treated fairly when it comes to the same level in the numbers, in the compensation, in the fair treatment, working conditions for us. It's not on par with where the league is going." The specifics of the PRO's latest offer included a 25% overall increase in salaries for match officials, with referees slated for a jump of 10-33%, assistant referees due for a 75-104% increase and video assistant referees expecting a raise of 15-100%, per ESPN. The PSRA have also demanded better travel arrangements considering the increase in teams and games and say that the PRO have offered them just four business class flights a year in the new CBA.
In the meantime, the PRO has lined up a group of replacement officials to oversee matches during the lockout. More than 60 match officials with experience around the world and in other American leagues were reportedly enlisted, but there are concerns around their preparedness for this season. They have only had a few days' notice to prepare for the games, and so the PRO and MLS decided on Wednesday not to implement new rules that the PRSA's members had been rehearsing for several months. It is a plan that has MLS' seal of approval, though. "PRO worked for months and addressed all the issues that were raised by PSRA's bargaining unit," MLS executive vice-president of sporting product and competition Nelson Rodríguez said in a statement on Saturday. "It is also unfortunate that the PSRA rejected PRO's offer for a mutual no strike - no lockout commitment, which would have allowed all match officials to continue working during ongoing negotiations. PRO has informed us of its contingency plan for the upcoming MLS season, which includes utilizing experienced professional match referees supported by veteran VAR officials. We are confident in the comprehensive plan they have put in place."
The PSRA's issues go further back than MLS' recent expansion, though. Match officials on the picket line, many of whom were supported by family members, said being a professional referee in the U.S. has rarely paid well. Some officials were paid as little as a few hundred dollars per match in earlier seasons, and the PSRA insists that low wages continue to be a problem that are in stark contrast to the money the league and its teams are collecting at times. Gonzales estimates that around 50% of the PSRA's membership work second jobs to make ends meet, but that those on the road are not physically able to. In a recent social media post, the union pointed at Inter Miami's recent preseason friendly at FC Dallas, when assigned match officials were paid less than $400 for a match that had a crowd of 32,000. Gonzales said he saw someone describe the situation as such: "100% of a low number is still a pretty low number." Travel arrangements are also a point of contention since several match officials spent a large chunk of time away from home. Some referees spend as many as 300 days on the road and can be gone for two weeks at a time depending on the match schedule and the regularly scheduled group sessions arranged by the PRO to ensure everyone is fit and up to date on the latest standards. "Somebody like me spent almost 200 days of last year away from home, jumping from hotel to hotel, city to city, airplane to airplane and I want to travel comfortably so I am mentally prepared, physically prepared to do the job that is required of me - training, refereeing, running, whatever the case may be," Gonzales said. "You have players flying charter and they're out there. We're doing the same thing when it comes to 90 minutes. Just be fair." The PSRA plans to stage another series of protests in front of MLS' offices - the same building where the PRO is also headquartered - on Saturday and Sunday, when most of the teams in the league play their first game. (Source: CBS)
