High School Football referees in Lafayette voted Monday to go on strike. They say it’s because of a lack of pay increases.
According to the Louisiana High School Officials Association, they’ve only had two pay increases from 1991 to 2007. Since then, they say they’ve only received more compensation when referees have threatened to strike, or have done so.
A strike has been widely discussed among referees this year, ever since their proposed $5.00 increase was denied in January.
“It is disappointing, but at some point in time you have to take a stand. And this has been a long time coming,” said Executive Committee Football representative with the Louisiana High School Officials Association Daniel Gautreaux.
Gautreaux says it was a unanimous vote by the Lafayette Area Football Officials Association to boycott the first varsity football game of the year.
“This could carry over into volleyball, boys’ and girls’ basketball, wrestling soccer, baseball, and softball,” Gautreaux said.
Gautreaux says they’re asking for $5 to $10 pay raises, depending on the sport.
“It would be about a $25 increase per football game night, or a total of about $50 dollars for an official for the entire season. So were not talking about an extreme sum of money,” Gautreaux said.
As for the LHSAA, they’ve proposed keep compensation the same for the upcoming school year, and “strongly promote” the new compensation plan for the following year.
“At this point, we have to actually at some point say enough is enough. We’ve gone through this a lot of years now, so we just get to a point we just have to say time’s up,” said President of the Lafayette Area Football Officials Association Michael Fontenot.
Via KATC