2 person varsity crews this year

[The_Rookie]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Be careful here, or that unmarked black helicopter outside your window may be from the American Civil Liberties Union, or the Title IX police.

Note: We take gender issues very seriously here in my little corner of Connecticut. My local board is being investigated by the federal government for inequalities regarding assignments of male versus female officials. Two plus years. Tons of data. Our insurance company wants to negotiate a settlement, just based on the data, not based on any biased intent.

WOW! I found this comment shocking! Did some disgruntled female officials drop a dime with the EEOC? How does this apply to Independent Contractors?

Billy on the Law!

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by The_Rookie

Did some disgruntled female officials drop a dime with the EEOC?

Yes.

At the time there was no "master list" listings the names of varsity officials and listing the names of subvarsity officials. The only way for disgruntled female officials to discover how many females/males received varsity schedules was to observe females/males working a varsity game, or ask around the "grape vine", tough to do with over 325 officials. The disgruntled female officials believed that they were being treated unfairly, but had no proof.

They claimed that we were keeping the numbers a secret. It really wasn't a secret. We weren't publicizing the numbers on our website, one just had to ask. The numbers are now on our website.

Right, or wrong, for almost forty years, maybe longer, we've had a "culture" of keeping one's schedule "close to the vest". When someone inquires about one's schedule, the "tradition" was to be vague regarding the number and level of games, probably to prevent jealousies and complaints.

As a rookie official, I remember being asked by another subvarsity official about my schedule and answered something like, "I got twenty junior varsity games". A veteran varsity official, one of our top guys, heard that and later told me never to answer with such specificity.

Even though our numbers, once reviewed, looked pretty fair, with no intent of bias, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "hung onto this bone like an angry dog", asking for document after document, for over two years. Our insurance company now wants to negotiate a settlement.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Yes.

At the time there was no "master list" listings the names of varsity officials and listing the names of subvarsity officials. The only way for disgruntled female officials to discover how many females/males received varsity schedules was to observe females/males working a varsity game, or ask around the "grape vine", tough to do with over 325 officials. The disgruntled female officials believed that they were being treated unfairly, but had no proof.

They claimed that we were keeping the numbers a secret. It really wasn't a secret. We weren't publicizing the numbers on our website, one just had to ask. The numbers are now on our website.

Right, or wrong, for almost forty years, maybe longer, we've had a "culture" of keeping one's schedule "close to the vest". When someone inquires about one's schedule, the "tradition" was to be vague regarding the number and level of games, probably to prevent jealousies and complaints.

As a rookie official, I remember being asked by another subvarsity official about my schedule and answered something like, "I got twenty junior varsity games". A veteran varsity official, one of our top guys, heard that and later told me never to answer with such specificity.

Even though our numbers, once reviewed, looked pretty fair, with no intent of bias, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "hung onto this bone like an angry dog", asking for document after document, for over two years. Our insurance company now wants to negotiate a settlement.

Are the HS officials in your association independent contractors or employees of the association executive board?

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season. The independent contractor agreement in NV specifically states that you are not guaranteed any assignments.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season.

At the time, our assignment commissioner (a paid employee of our local board) was bound by our rules to assign each "good standing" (dues paid, fees paid, certain important meetings attended) official a "range of games" (number of assignments) dependent on one's ranking, which, in turn, was based on one's rating, which was based on peer ratings, written exam, meetings attended, and availability. The rankings were also used to determine varsity, or subvarsity, status.

The disgruntled female officials were not really concerned about their number of assignments, but rather, on their status as varsity, or subvarsity, officials. A few believed that their status should be based on years of experience, as well as their ability. Years of experience was not part of the status equation. Never was, in terms of guaranteed varsity assignments. We never had rule that said "ten years in means guaranteed varsity assignments" (we did have a rule that stipulated a minimum number of years to get some varsity games, or a full varsity schedule, that rule no longer exists). This very small group thought that they were "spinning their wheels" working subvarsity games and never getting a varsity game. They believed that it was their gender holding them back, not their lack of ability. But this was happening to low ability guys as well as low ability gals. Due to the lack of a well publicized "master list", they couldn't know whether there was gender discrimination, or not.

Since then, we have changed our system to a system based on observations by trained observers, with no posted "range of games" (number of assignments), but on the discretion of the assignment commissioner based on the observations. Trained observers also decide varsity, or subvarsity, status. We also have a "master list" on our website. We can now see who gets varsity games, and who gets subvarsity games (but not the number of assignments).

The independent contractor tag has been loosely tossed around our local board for several decades. I'm not sure that it's used in a truly legal sense.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Are the HS officials in your association independent contractors or employees of the association executive board?

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season. The independent contractor agreement in NV specifically states that you are not guaranteed any assignments.

That's what I thought.

And discrimination laws (Title VII) don't apply to ICs (at least at the federal level), so assigners can use pretty much whatever criteria they want in making assignments.

[LRZ]

In recent years, there have been several court decisions holding officials to be employees, not independent contractors, of the state's scholastic athletic association. I think two of them arose here in eastern Pennsylvania. And, too, a regional NLRB decision to certify a union for officials, as employees.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by LRZ

In recent years, there have been several court decisions holding officials to be employees, not independent contractors, of the state's scholastic athletic association. I think two of them arose here in eastern Pennsylvania. And, too, a regional NLRB decision to certify a union for officials, as employees.

Wouldn't that all depend on the nature of how the games are given or how officials are paid? If you are paid through an association directly, I know that can lead to some violating employee rules if you pay them a certain amount of money and you are not taking out taxes and social security in your payment. I know several associations I belong to took out certain langauge in their Constitutions to avoid the appearance of having any assigning directly for the membership.

Also, there was an organization (that assigned another sport) that was hit with a hefty tax bill when they were paying officials directly and were not giving the proper tax information or reporting that they were paying officials directly.

I am certainly not saying this is not happening, but I wonder if the issues in those cases are related to other issues like I mentioned. I know many employee laws are state laws that some jurisdictions have to follow. Federal law is a different issue, but usually, they are related to taxes and paying social security properly from my understanding.

Peace

[LRZ]

If I recall correctly, the two PA cases involved gender discrimination, and officials were paid directly by schools, not through their association or assigner. But the assigners controlled who got which games and who worked varsity, and district officials determined who got state play-offs.

[amusedofficial]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Wouldn't that all depend on the nature of how the games are given or how officials are paid? If you are paid through an association directly, I know that can lead to some violating employee rules if you pay them a certain amount of money and you are not taking out taxes and social security in your payment.

The issue arises if an officials association hires or maintains authority over an assigner and gets a chunk of money to covered scheduled games from school districts or the state from which it issues checks to officials.

That could be found to be an employer/employee relationship. Work through the IRS definition of independent contractor and the analysis shows the categorization fails.

The right to decline work is the only potential way out for the association, but even that can be defeated by a showing that the association took action that could be deemed retribution, real or implied, against a contractor who says no too often, especially if the normal custom and practice for using ratings to determine assignments is ignored to make a point..

If the check ain't coming from the school, state or league, and the officials association writes the checks, then there needs to be legal separation between officials association and assigner, otherwise the association risks being an employer, albeit one that is engaged in employee leasing. And by writes the checks, i include using a third-party vendor, such as RefPay, to handle it.

It goes to more than discrimination actions. In some jurisdictions, it may raise a game injury to an injury arising out of and in the course of employment, which means workers comp.

Also, don't try to tell me some assigners are not reluctant to assign women to boys varsity high school games. "It's happening and it's about damn time they were called on it," said the 60ish, Irish-American, Catholic, Democrat member of the AFL_CIO