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Carl...interesting post.
First, as to the original post...we start here in the midlands of SC on Sunday, January 8. We'll go two hours every Sunday for six Sundays. We'll then have 3 on-field clinics on Saturdays...plus we have a state clinic on a Wednesday in February (where the test is given)...plus every member must work two scrimmages before the regular season.
Carl, we went through a similar situation with our local association this off-season. Our umpires (according to a Referee Magazine article, and according to various posts on the various internet boards) were the lowest paid umpires in the nation at around $35 a game. And frankly we were sick of it.
The South Carolina High School League says in their manual that umpires are to be paid $35 a game (or somewhere around that...I forget the exact amount but it was within a dollar or two of $35). Our local association (including myself as Vice-President) felt that we were grossly underpaid compared to umpires in neighboring states and compared to other officials in other sports in our state.
To solve this problem, I noted that the same SC High School League manual goes to great lengths to tell us that we (umpires) are independent contractors and not employees of the League.
So, I gave a legal opinion that the High School League's statement in their manual (that we were to be paid $35 a game) only constituted an "offer" and that we (our association) were rejecting that offer.
We then sent a letter directly to the 27 schools we serviced offering to provide umpires for their games at a new fee of $50, $55 or $60 depending on the school's location. While we were professional and cordial in our letter...we pretty much made it clear that it was a "take-it-or-leave-it" situation.
As I pointed out to our association board of directors: while it was possible that some schools on the outskirts of our territory could leave us and go with another association, the vast majority of the schools have to use either us or youth league umpires.
So, in addition to my legal opinion to our board of directors, I also gave a business opinion that the "supply-and-demand" model was way out of whack. Simply put: there is high demand for our services, but we're the only association who could supply the services we provided.
Needless to say, of the 27 schools, we had one complaint...and that school was an "outlier" school that decided to go with another association.
So now we have 26 schools paying $50-$60 a game instead of 27 paying around $35. I'll take that swap any day of the week.
Just another war story from the local association battle front.
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