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MLS is Union Busting (feat. Peter Manikowski) - Ep. 22
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In this special episode Noah Riffe is joined by Professional Soccer Referee's Assocation President Peter Manikowski to discuss the ongoing labor dispute between PSRA and MLS/PRO.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:09
Speaker
Hey everyone, it's producer Noah here for a solo episode, though I won't be solo for long as we are going to be joined by Professional Soccer Referees Association president Peter Manikowski. But I wanted to lay the groundwork for this episode before we jump into our interview, because I think it's really important to talk about what we're going to talk about.
Lockout and Officiating Quality Issues
00:00:30
Speaker
Now, it is very apparent to most people who have been paying attention that there has been a big decrease in the quality of officiating in Major League Soccer over the start of this new season, right? The new season in which Messi is going to play his complete and full debut season. We are seeing more League's Cup.
00:00:55
Speaker
We are seeing all of these things that are supposedly going to all be officiated by pro referees. Well, there is a little bit of a difference because the Major League Soccer funded Professional Referees Association, or PRO, are currently in a lockout dispute with the Professional Soccer Referees Association, which from now on I will be calling PSRA.
Impact of Replacement Referees
00:01:19
Speaker
And they are kind of in a little bit of a contract negotiation dispute and the league has decided we don't want the best of the best officials. Instead, we are going to find some SCAB officials and they are going to take over while we discuss all of the specifics of these contracts with the union represented referees.
00:01:44
Speaker
Now, there's a ton of stuff that led up to this obviously and we will get into the specifics in our interview, but this has led to some really, honestly, if I'm opining here, some bad situations. While on one hand Major League Soccer will tell you and have executives retweeting articles talking about, we see no change in quality?
00:02:09
Speaker
These replacement officials are just as good as any others. They're also at the same time sending out memos like the one uncovered by the athletic saying, don't belabor the point when talking about these replacement refs. Don't, don't, don't, you know, don't just don't pay attention. It's really not that important. And if you do talk about it, just say, well, yeah, you know, they're not bad, though.
00:02:34
Speaker
But it's pretty hard to pretend that it's not a problem. When hours before a game, you have to replace a center official because images come out of that center official wearing an inner Miami kit before he's about to officiate an inner Miami game. How does that slip through the cracks? And then we don't even get to the inexperienced calls yet.
00:02:55
Speaker
A second yellow shown to LA Galaxy's Marky Delgado in the 87th led to a stoppage time equalizer from Inner Miami in LA. That's crazy. I mean, yeah, you could probably say Messi would have got it done no matter what, but going down in the 87th minute after dominating the game against Inner Miami, I mean, I would be frustrated.
00:03:18
Speaker
especially when the next day of practice Sergio Busquets who was fouled said there was no contact and that the second yellow probably shouldn't have been shown.
00:03:27
Speaker
Now, then we go into supporting Kansas City versus the Philadelphia Union this past week where a missed deflection resulted in a corner being called when the Union were the one who put the ball out in the first place. That corner turned into an equalizing goal for Philly when they should have never even had the ball in the first place. And then that is before we even talk about we've seen 22 video reviews through the first two weeks of play. In contrast, there was two during the same stretch last year.
00:03:56
Speaker
Calls are being overturned at a higher rate as well. 85% of our interventions in 2024 have resulted in a call being overturned compared with 61% in 2023. That means that the referees on the field are getting the call wrong initially. And those are just for the calls that VAR can actually intervene in.
00:04:16
Speaker
And the VAR officials themselves are also not as experienced. And then the officials on the field are not experienced with using VAR. This is all to say that the quality of officiating in the league has gone down very significantly.
00:04:33
Speaker
because the best officials are not being allowed to do their job. So how did we get here, right? That's the big question.
Reasons Behind the Lockout
00:04:43
Speaker
Well, on February 18th, the professional referees organization pro locked out their pool of officials.
00:04:49
Speaker
because there was a dispute over the collective bargaining agreement. And remember, the MLS did this with the players not too long ago. They love to win an argument. They hate to cede any point to any kind of labor organization because, you know, generally when you have a large group of business owners and rich people, they don't tend to take well to union activity.
00:05:14
Speaker
that's my opinion. But basically they decided hey let's just get a pool of replacement referees and thumb our nose to the best officials that we have. Every position that there isn't official is someone who has most likely never officiated in Major League Soccer. Now it's easy to hate on officials obviously. That's something that
00:05:37
Speaker
We all love to do. We talk about it on this podcast. We're critical at times.
Referee Working Conditions
00:05:41
Speaker
I'm critical very often, especially when I'm sitting in that stadium and a call is going against my team. But these people still deserve living wages. They still deserve to have health care. They still deserve all of the basic necessities that I would want from a job and that they should get from a job as well.
00:05:58
Speaker
So whether you think that they are bad at their jobs or that we should be getting better officials, you're never going to get better officials. If you continue to pay bad wages, you don't offer good benefits and you're forcing referees to basically have a bad quality of life outside of work. With that said, here's my interview with Peter.
Interview with PSRA President
00:06:25
Speaker
All right, we are joined by Peter Manikowski of the Professional Soccer Referees Association. He is the president. He is probably the chief advocate as well, I would say. You'll probably see him on some other podcasts, interviews and all of that. So Peter, yeah, do you want to introduce yourself a little bit and just tell us your background and officiating and background with the PSRA as well?
00:06:49
Speaker
Sure, I'd be happy to and really appreciate you having me with you today. So my professional refereeing was 16 years in Major League Soccer. I worked over 200 matches as an assistant referee. I was fortunate enough to work three MLS cups and share the field with a lot of really very good players, coaches and referees alike. And I was really happy to
00:07:16
Speaker
Happy to do that. I left the field to play about a year and a half ago and continuing to serve my term as president of the PSRA. For the PSRA, I've been 11, 12 years since we started our original organizing effort.
00:07:33
Speaker
Um, to, uh, to truly unionize the officials prior to that, we were an association of officials, but, um, 2012 and 2013, we, we unionized to get certified bargaining rights with, with, uh, pro. And that's kind of where the story began for this.
00:07:53
Speaker
Awesome, yeah. And I think something that maybe a lot of people don't understand completely about the situation is the relationship between Pro and the PSRA, or at least fans in this situation.
PRO and PSRA Relationship Dynamics
00:08:05
Speaker
So do you want to describe just a little bit how that relationship works between you and you two?
00:08:10
Speaker
Sure. So prior to 2012, there were exactly four full-time officials in the United States for soccer. And they were employed by US Soccer. And starting in 2012, Pro was formed as a joint venture between Major League Soccer and US Soccer.
00:08:27
Speaker
to employ the officials, provide additional and more training for the officials and probably a more stable work environment for them so that they could focus on refereeing, which now about 30 officials have full-time jobs with pro. And as I mentioned before, the PSRA is the labor union that represents
00:08:53
Speaker
officials. There's 100 officials who are covered under what usually working in MLS and another 85 who are working in U.S.L. and WSL and some other leaks. And then we have an additional 75 or so members who are general members, associate members who support the cause and are going to be coming through that path sometime soon.
00:09:21
Speaker
moving into the next phase of soccer in America, we have the literal greatest soccer player to ever play the game is now in Major League Soccer. Clearly the officiating you guys of all people want that to be up to standard. So what is it? Maybe just give us a little background on how this dispute got started in the first place and why pro decided
00:09:45
Speaker
No, let's let's lock out our best officials for for the start of this very important new season.
Collective Bargaining Breakdown
00:09:53
Speaker
Sure. And, you know, the
00:09:56
Speaker
the collective bargaining agreement that expired between PSRA and pro for these 100 officials. Um, we attempted to renegotiate the contract starting back in earnest in, in October, although discussions even were happening before that. And, um, you know, those negotiations are true labor negotiations, just as they were with, you know, recently with UPS, with, um, uh, the United auto workers, longshoremen.
00:10:25
Speaker
and things like this, and under the National Labor Relations Act, when a contract expires, it expires.
00:10:31
Speaker
And it can be extended, which happened with us for a couple of weeks. But then without a contract without a collective bargaining agreement. And no extension given the. I mean, you could ask pro why they did it, but we we suspect that they wanted to preemptively lock us out and that's that's where it started. Now I will say that. When it comes to.
00:10:59
Speaker
general operation of Pro. We have a very good relationship with those Pro managers. Day to day, we do excellently well together. We have our squabbles, but we solve them in a business-like way. But when the contract expired, the issues of money and travel benefits and how to bargain really became important, came to the forefront. And these were issues that we have not solved and not
00:11:30
Speaker
gotten a new ratified CPA yet.
Key Negotiation Points
00:11:32
Speaker
So it seems maybe that the issue is less between the day to day pro officials themselves and more with league, you know, bigger league representatives, owners, things like that, who are not really interested in renegotiating this contract and would maybe like to cut costs or something at corners, because I guess maybe we can jump into the specifics of what this renegotiated contract
00:11:59
Speaker
What you guys are looking for because from my understanding it doesn't seem like you're asking for quite too much Yeah, well we certainly see it that way Look there's The company never asked us for cuts in in any areas, right? This is a this is really coming down to a question of how much growth and when and
00:12:20
Speaker
Major League Soccer is expanding. The league is growing in revenues for TV sponsorships and the like. And the players over the last two contracts have done their work in making themselves part of the growth. And we're looking to do the same thing.
00:12:41
Speaker
Now the players, to their tremendous credit, have a revenue share in their contract for the first time. We didn't ask for a revenue share, but what we did ask is to keep up with the growth, with respect to complexity, the scrutiny on the work, the amount of work that folks are doing, and those different things.
00:13:01
Speaker
We don't see eye to eye with the company on how those things should be accomplished. I just want to get some specifics on the things that you guys are bargaining for, the important things that just down to the brass tacks, maybe we bullet pointed mental list here. You know, what are you guys looking for specifically?
00:13:24
Speaker
Right, so the first one is wages and in particular guaranteed wages, right? So that even if an official was to get hurt, the guaranteed component of pay would continue to come. And as you might expect, this is a big deal. This is not so different than what the players were talking about three, four years ago.
00:13:43
Speaker
and their contract before that. It's the same issue. There's health insurance benefits for about 40 officials over here that that needs work on how to get these folks health insurance benefits so that they can get preventive care in order to be moving as fast as 20 year old players. There's an important aspect of this and they can remain healthy for the duration of the season.
00:14:11
Speaker
The last part being travel and the way that we fly around the United States and Canada is a tricky topic, right? Because the players, you know, have a sea change in the way that they move around the United States and Canada as a midterm modification to their last contract.
00:14:35
Speaker
Not even to bargain for, but a midterm modification. And we're looking for changes and more flexibility. I'll give you an example. Right now the company can force us onto a 6 a.m. flight after a match under certain circumstances. We've done a little bit of work to mitigate that. But how and when we fly is an important part when people are taking 80 or 100 flights a year.
00:15:02
Speaker
So those are the main three topics that are left to be resolved. There are some other side issues that will cooperate our way through, but these are the main three that are left.
00:15:14
Speaker
No one likes a 6am flight. I mean, that's pretty clear. No one wants to, after being up late the night before, working hard, running, no one wants to get on a 6am flight. I think every fan can agree on that one there. Well, I'll tell you when I did this job, I took the 6am flight every morning after the matches because on a typical weekend, you would fly Friday afternoon, Friday night.
00:15:42
Speaker
do the match on Saturday and then get home for as much weekend time as possible with your family. And with my family, I always took the 6 a.m. That was my choice. But the point being that people want flexibility to do what they want and travel how they want to do within reason.
00:16:04
Speaker
People have this outside view again, like I would say mostly fans who are uninitiated have this view that, you know, referees, this is their only job. This is the only thing that they're doing. And, um, as I've heard in other interviews that you've given, that's not really the case. That's correct. That, um, out of the 100 of us covered, um, under this collective bargaining agreement or not expired collective bargaining agreement.
00:16:28
Speaker
There are about 30 or so officials who take this as their full time employment, have benefits through the company. And this is what this is their job. This is what they do. Everyone else cannot make so much money in this job at the moment.
00:16:46
Speaker
to support a mortgage, car payment, rent, whatever have you. And what's difficult about this is that there are three different pay structures that are captured here. One for truly full-time officials, that needs work. Something for people who are about half time, that needs work. And then folks who were earned last season $20,000 for 40 matches.
00:17:15
Speaker
that needs a lot of work. And, you know, when general percentages, for example, are thrown out about the 25% pay increase, that might be true on average, but when you're earning $20,000 to begin with, 25% might not be enough to change the mortgage, if that's what you got in the first place. So once again, I want to stress that this is about how much growth and when.
00:17:42
Speaker
And our members don't feel that the growth is not coming high enough or fast enough. Yeah, I heard you as well talk about this TV deal that was just done with Apple TV. It's an international deal. It's a big deal. It's important for the league, like you're saying,
MLS Aspirations and Refereeing Quality
00:18:01
Speaker
growth. When do we want to do it now?
00:18:06
Speaker
How does this contract that you're seeking compare with these other top leagues in the world and how should MLS be leading in that sense if they do want to be a top five league in the world, which very clearly they can be and want to be? Sure. It takes a lot to be a top five league in the world. First and foremost, I'm a fan.
00:18:32
Speaker
I watch matches from all over the world. I watch refereeing from all over the world. And, you know, the production that occurs for German matches, English matches, you know, all these different places is really, really fantastic stuff. And MLS is certainly on the way there. You know, I watched the All-Star game. I was present at the last All-Star game.
00:18:58
Speaker
And I also was watching it on my iPhone while I was on the stadium. And it was a really cool show. And it's amazing that it's going there. It really is. And one of the philosophical questions I suppose is, are the referees part of the show?
00:19:16
Speaker
Or are the referees overhead? And all our folks definitely think that we are supporters to the show. And without good refereeing, the product on the field of play suffers, just like it would in any other league. And that's really where we're coming from, is we are the talent that is a part of the show.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, and talking about the quality of play, we've seen 22 video reviews over the first two weeks of play, which contrasts with two over the same stretch last year with your officials. And the rates of overturned calls are significantly higher with the intervention as well. Now, some people might argue it's early on. There's a small sample size, but
00:20:01
Speaker
When I look at that, that's a little bit concerning when you have league officials saying, we're very pleased with how this is going. But based on the statistics, it seems maybe there is a different story there. Well, look, VAR is an excellent safety net.
VAR's Role and Game Impact
00:20:20
Speaker
And when VAR came in, if you ask the referees around, the referees are happy to have the VAR around because
00:20:31
Speaker
making mistakes and changing matches is not what we want to be doing. And having that safety net is an excellent thing. And look, the safety net is a good one, as you can see in the last couple of weeks of matches. But when you do that, and if you go to a game where there are multiple video reviews in the same game,
00:20:49
Speaker
The ball is not in play as long as it otherwise is. The flow of the match isn't there. The entertainment, the credibility with the players are those things that are part of the entertaining part of soccer that go away the fastest. I just add that the games that flow in the ball is moving as fast as possible.
00:21:11
Speaker
are the ones I love to attend and I love to watch. And the herky-jerky ones are the ones I might turn off. And as a fan, that's concerning. Thank you for listening to the Sound Rit Heart podcast network, which now includes No Sonietes, Lobbing Scorchers, and The Cooler Guild. We've been independent since August of 2023,
00:21:41
Speaker
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00:21:57
Speaker
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00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, and I would just switching back a little bit to the contract itself, how are things going with with the conversations? I mean, obviously, I understand that that's a very tedious situation. So as much, you know, as much or as little insight as you want to give us. But I think people are interested to know.
Union-Busting Perceptions
00:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think the best way to characterize it is a bitter labor dispute where you have one party locking out the employees. We have the membership with outstanding solidarity. We have 100 officials standing together and the other members and the referee community for the vast majority of them are sticking together standing with us, which is something I haven't seen before.
00:23:11
Speaker
If you would have told me any year before this that you would have soccer referees picketing in Manhattan on 38th Street near Fifth Avenue, I would have never believed you. And it's truly a testament to the member solidarity that folks are picketing in New York, Dallas to share their story and to let people know what's happening.
00:23:36
Speaker
With respect to the bargaining, we had negotiations a little bit last week, this past Monday and Tuesday we met again and the parties are talking, the parties are
00:23:50
Speaker
talking through the mediator sometimes from the FMCS and, but there is no movement to speak of. What I would say is that it's apparent to the union that this isn't about money right now. That this is about extracting pain upon the membership, teaching the membership a lesson and all those other
00:24:16
Speaker
goals of busting the union that the company might have. And when things turn that way, it's difficult to have productive discussions. So when the league and when pro want to come and talk, we're here to talk and we have solutions. But right now, that's not what it's about in our estimation.
00:24:35
Speaker
So in your estimation, it seems as though this is more of a move to push out the unionized officials and replace them potentially with a new crop that is just has no power against the league. Is that what I'm hearing?
00:24:54
Speaker
I'm not so sure it's that. I think it's more about busting the union solidarity and potentially busting the union. And it's disappointing, although MLS has never been a union friendly workplace, right? We perceive that that's partly what it's about right now.
00:25:12
Speaker
Which is to say to, to scare enough members to, um, incorrectly, perhaps incentivize them to vote one way or the other. Uh, you know, right now pro has this dual track proposal on the table. The first track being vote, re-vote the first tentative agreement by Monday, or otherwise we're going to be offering less favorable terms.
00:25:35
Speaker
And a dual track proposal like that is we perceive it to be a bully tactic and a way to try to get the members to break their solidarity. And as president of the union, I'm expecting this. This is not new and.
00:25:51
Speaker
And our members, we were sticking together in a recent conversation that a sounder at heart had with retired MLS player, Will Bruin. Um, he shared that the consistency of knowing and understanding the officials is such an importance to his game and player safety. Uh, you have the MLS PA coming out and saying that this is going to be unsafe for art.
00:26:15
Speaker
are workers and they're standing with you. You have you have fans who are very clearly noticing a decrease in quality and this all seems to be over a per team increase of around a hundred thousand dollars and I know you've touched on it a few times but that seems a little bit ridiculous and seems as though which Will Bruin categorized it as this. The league and the owners are like they try to do a lot just trying to win an argument for argument's sake. Yeah and I think that that's the way that we
00:26:47
Speaker
I think that that's the way we see it too. And, you know, Will Bruin, I always liked sharing the field to play with Will Bruin. He was always very kind to me and I hope I was kind to him as well. But Will Bruin is also one of the smartest players that I encountered with the way that he perceived things and the way that he was going about everything he was doing. And so I always tried to listen to what he was saying.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I think he's got it right on this one. And when it comes to the idea of player safety, soccer is a hard game. It's a game full of a lot of contact. And when players walk onto the field to play and see our referees refereeing there, they know more or less where the line is.
00:27:44
Speaker
of what's going to be acceptable today. And it doesn't move too much from there. Sometimes things are missed, of course, but familiarity when people are moving this fast is very important. And I would just finally close that by saying that
00:28:05
Speaker
When you go to work, whether your job is in a post office or your job is at a school or your job is at an auto plant or whatever have you, and you rely on other work groups to accomplish what you are trying to do. Replacing half the workforce or replacing some part of the workforce makes everyone else's job in that workplace more difficult. So, you know, this is a production taking many parts and one giant piece is missing right now.
00:28:35
Speaker
I think the best way for fans to kind of understand that too is when you have MLS teams maybe represented in Champions League and then you know there's a different level of officiating and they're like oh it's CONCACAFT CONCACAFT all this stuff I'm like well you know these officials in their own wherever they're officiating that's
Importance of Referee-Player Familiarity
00:28:55
Speaker
That's that's how that people will understand that. And, you know, when you jump into a new league, completely new referees, it's going to be a change. And it is very clearly important to one, I feel like it's also important that players and referees have these relationships and that helps deescalate things quite a lot.
00:29:16
Speaker
It does. And one of the things that we noticed in 14 was when the lockout occurred was that the players were a little bit more not going so fast as they usually do. Let's put it that way. Back in 14, there were some matches that were awfully stale compared to how they might otherwise be.
00:29:40
Speaker
And. You know, we were fans too, and there are some matches that have been slower. We think that they might otherwise have been because of that lack of familiarity. Which is, we're not sure how the referee is going to take care of a problem if it arises, so let's avoid it all together and I'll say it again is I love very fast soccer and the ball moving around like crazy and. I want to see it again. I really do.
00:30:07
Speaker
So I guess that, that brings me into my, my final kind of point here is how can the community support you guys? I mean, we, it's funny because you see a lot of fans will rag on officials all the time. It's like, it's, it's, it's a trope, right? But, um, I think it's important that, you know, if you want, if you want something to complain about, complain about, about MLS treating, treating its workers unfairly. And, uh, how can we help you with that?
00:30:38
Speaker
Well, the first part is that the struggle that we 100 officials are facing right now and really soccer officials everywhere in the United States is a matter of respect. It's a matter of being listened to, whether it's in the Youth League in the park and people are abusing the referee in the Youth League or the referee in the stadium who, you know, is in a labor dispute.
00:31:04
Speaker
soccer officials worldwide have the same struggles, maybe even not just soccer officials, but officials generally. So I think the first part is to understand where the referees are coming from.
00:31:18
Speaker
to spread the word about what's occurring and workers rights is a major issue and how employees are treated as a major issue. Finally, I would just add that the fans of Major League Soccer are what make the league go week to week. I really think that. I've experienced it.
00:31:41
Speaker
And it's a really cool thing. And when the fans share their feelings about what's going on, whether it be with signs or whether it be with phone calls or whether it be with chants or whatever else they have going, these things have an effect.
00:31:56
Speaker
And we love to see those things in support of our cause. And we really ask that they continue.
Community Support for Fair Treatment
00:32:03
Speaker
But the soccer is for the fans, soccer is for the players and teams. And that enjoyment, we hope it comes back in full and in earnest.
00:32:13
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like to share or anything we didn't cover that you want to touch on? No, no. Really, that last part is what it's about, which is workers everywhere struggle with these things and now is our time. And we ask that workers, when we work together, that's what we get the improvements we need.
00:32:34
Speaker
So I really want to appreciate your time and it was great to be here talking to you. That was Peter Manikowski of the Professional Soccer Referees Association. Thank you to Peter for chatting with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and give us a rate. If you didn't enjoy it, well, also give us a rate. Why not? Who cares?
00:32:55
Speaker
I'm Noah Rife, you can find me on Twitter at NoahRife, N-O-A-H-R-I-F-F-E. And if you guys love Sounders content, if you love Major League Soccer content, obviously follow us on your favorite platform. We are Lobbing Scorchers. Ari will be back on Monday for our regularly scheduled program. I hope you enjoyed and we'll see you on Monday.