7 teams have had furloughs or cuts

NEW YORK (AP) - NFL employees have had their salaries trimmed by 12 percent since April, and seven teams have instituted pay cuts or furloughs of workers outside the huddle since the owners’ lockout of players began March 12, The Associated Press has found in interviews around the league.

Miami, Buffalo, the New York Jets, Kansas City, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Arizona are the teams known to have slashed payroll.

In all, the number of affected employees who work for either the clubs or the league is likely more than 100. Count Commissioner Roger Goodell and Jeff Pash, the NFL’s lead labor negotiator, among them. Their salaries have been reduced to $1 each while the league’s labor impasse is unresolved.

Two teams, the Falcons and 49ers, would not comment when asked if they made any cuts, citing privacy issues. Information about several other clubs came from people with knowledge of the cuts or furloughs who spoke on condition of anonymity because the moves had not been announced by the team.

Several team owners, particularly John Mara of the Giants, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, and Jim Irsay of the Colts, have been adamant about avoiding such reductions.

“I try to stay focused in the now. I just don’t anticipate that sort of thing,” Irsay said. “My feeling is I’m interested in good morale around here. I look at someone who’s making $40,000, $50,000 a year, who has rent to pay, and I don’t see it for me as an owner to be asking them for anything.”

Buffalo has asked for a lot.

The Bills made across-the-board cuts to all salaried employees in March ranging between 20 and 25 percent.

“We have made prudent preparations for the possibilities of a work stoppage,” Bills CEO Russ Brandon said then. “We have, for some time, been very upfront and transparent with our staff so that they, too, could make prudent preparations. We have built a program that focuses on shared sacrifice. Every employee in the organization will be affected. As you move up the organization chart, the sacrifice increases in absolute and percentage terms, as it should.

“We plan no layoffs as a result of the situation at this time. Our hope is that our advanced planning will allow us to avoid them in the future as well.”

But in May the team also suspended payments into the employees’ pension and 401K plans for the duration of the lockout.

Lions employees have taken two-week furloughs, a person familiar with the moves told the AP.

“Any decisions we make, the impact will start with me,” said team president Tom Lewand, adding the names of coach Jim Schwartz and general manager Martin Mayhew. “Unfortunately, it is affecting the entire organization, starting with us.”

The Cardinals had a companywide weeklong furlough during the last week of May. All the coaches have in their contracts pay reductions in the event of a work stoppage.

The Jets have been requiring their dozens of non-contracted employees to take a one-week unpaid furlough every month since the lockout began. Contracted employees in football operations, including general manager Mike Tannenbaum, coach Rex Ryan and assistant coaches, took 25 percent pay cuts.

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