NFL To Start Season with Faux Ref's

From ESPN: Less than three weeks before the season kicks off, the NFL and the NFL Referees Association are no closer to an agreement to end the lockout of the officials.
As replacement officials work preseason games -- and generally get criticized for their performances -- the league and officials Thursday disputed such issues as full-time employees and adding officiating crews.
On Sept. 5, the Cowboys visit the Giants to open the season. Not since 2001 has the NFL played games that count in the standings with replacement officials, and that was for one week. This lockout began June 3.
The NFL is offering to add three full officiating crews, increasing the total number of officials to 140. League spokesman Greg Aiello said "this would reduce stress on the officials by allowing each official to work fewer games, would reduce travel, would allow us to do more intensive training, integrate younger officials more effectively, increase diversity, and improve quality of officiating."
"The union flatly opposes this proposal ..." Aiello added.
But the NFLRA insists the compensation being offered with such an increase would reduce their pay.
"The increase in the number of officials was first proposed by the NFL to the NFLRA by letter dated July 19, 2012 and had never been mentioned in the preceding 10 months of negotiations," the NFLRA said in a statement. "It is clear that this proposal is a negotiating tactic to attempt to divert attention from the real issues."
Another key issue, one Aiello noted will improve the quality of officiating long term, is hiring full-time officials. The league is proposing having seven officials -- one per position of referee, umpire, line judge, side judge, back judge, field judge, head linesman -- who would train, scout, handle communications, safety issues and rules interpretations year-round. Now, all NFL game officials are part-time employees, with outside jobs ranging from lawyer to teacher to business owner.  http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8275139/nfl-wants-reduce-referees-pay-add-three-full-time-crews
For the most part, I think the ref's and officials are in the right, except for the pay issue.  The officials only work about 16-20 games a season and it would not be fair to pay them the same as a baseball umpire or basketball ref, even though the NFL ref's do a better job.
However, the NFL is wrong by demanding more referees that will dilute the ref pool and so, if they get paid per game, the ref's will lose money.  And how much are we dealing, money wise?  Probably less than $1 million which is tiny considering that football is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Further, making the jobs full time is not necessary nor is it fair to the ref's who have full time jobs now.  You would think that they can work things out, unless the NFL is trying to break the ref union.
I honestly believe that the current ref's (not the replacements) do a great job for the most part and they are much better than their basketball, baseball and hockey counterparts.  The do deserve a decent pay raise because of the safety issues and because football is swimming in money with the big TV contracts.
I don't agree much with unions very much, but in this case, I support the NFL ref's over the NFL owners.