Labor Archives - Page 23 of 32 - Marc Normandin is creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism

MLB is forcing MiLB players to leave spring training, without pay or hope

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Spring training is officially over, and the Major League Baseball Players Association sent out a memo to its members telling them they could stay at the spring training facility, go home, or head to the city that their team plays in. The allowances teams give to players during spring training, like for housing, are still in effect. The on-field facilities players use to prep for the regular season will remain open to those who stay, as well, and teams will assist in flying out the families of any players who had their families with them in Arizona or Florida, to boot.

According to minor-league players spoken to under the condition of anonymity, MLB’s response was much more terse and disconcerting: go home. It was left up to each individual team to craft their own message to their minor-league players that said as much, but that was what had to be relayed from above. Go home, whether you’re a domestic or international player. Go home, because you, as minor-league players, don’t have the protections and rights to negotiating an exit as unionized players.

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Mavericks will pay arena workers during coronavirus suspension, but what about every other team?

The MLBPA filed another grievance against the Pirates

The History of Baseball Unionization: The Players Protective Association

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Major League Baseball players had few rights before the signing of the first collective bargaining agreement in professional sports in 1968. They didn’t get all of their current rights all at once, either: the battle was, and is, an ongoing one. Before the Players Association, before Marvin Miller, there were other attempts to organize baseball players against the bosses. In this series, we’ll investigate each of those attempts, and suss out what went wrong. Part 1 can be found here.

After the successes — but inevitable failure — of the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players and its player-led Players League, the National League was, in essence, the only game in town for professional baseball. It was the sole major league, at least, as it had vanquished the Players League by working with the capitalists the players had relied on to, well, not do that, and the combination of biggest pockets and best players put an end to the American Association’s chances of ever catching up. From 1892 through 1900, the NL’s monopoly on major league baseball was unassailable.

Continue reading “The History of Baseball Unionization: The Players Protective Association”

The History of Baseball Unionization: The Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players

There was an attempt to organize professional baseball players years before there was ever a Major League Baseball. Back in 1885, the National League reigned supreme. The league was in its 10th season, and had thrived in ways previous major leagues had not — and had done so in part due to the reserve clause. The reserve clause, established in 1879, gave NL clubs unlimited control over its players, severely weakening their ability to negotiate for more money, while making it impossible to play for another team at all. This is the same reserve clause that was banished from MLB nearly 100 years later, thanks to the efforts of Curt Flood, Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith, Dave McNally, and the rest of the Players Association that fought for the right for free agency, the clause that made a player the property of their team in perpetuity.

Continue reading “The History of Baseball Unionization: The Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players”

Giants raise MiLB player wages, subsidize housing (for some)

Anthony Rizzo calls out the Cubs, MLB, and he’s not wrong

Here’s why MiLB players won’t be paid for appearing in MLB The Show

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

If you’re a fan of baseball video games, and have been waiting for minor-league players to finally be included in one, you’re in luck! The latest edition of MLB The Show is going to include full minor-league rosters for the first time ever. Oh, here’s just a tiny side note: those minor-league players aren’t going to be paid for the use of their likeness in the game, because MLB owns those and can do whatever they want with it.

Minor League Baseball’s players sign a uniform contract. MLB players also have uniform contracts, but the language contained within those has been negotiated over the course of decades through collective bargaining, and that uniform language is a base upon which they can build specifics. Not so with the minors, where the contract is the contract, and cannot be altered by the players: sign it or don’t sign it, but only one of those outcomes allows you to play pro ball under the MLB umbrella.

Continue reading “Here’s why MiLB players won’t be paid for appearing in MLB The Show”

Mets’ renovated spring training clubhouse a reminder of gap between MLB and MiLB

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

One of the planks of Major League Baseball’s plan slash threat to disaffiliate 42 Minor League Baseball clubs involved facilities. MLB believed too many facilities at too many parks were out-of-date, unsafe, unproductive, and unhelpful. There’s some truth to that, too: some stadiums do have old facilities that could use upgrading, and it would have been good of the MiLB owners, who don’t have to pay the players in their employ, the same players who help them make a profit, to work on upgrading those facilities with those revenues.

At the same time, MLB teams can certainly afford to do it themselves: sure, MLB signs some minor-league players to significant bonuses, and they do pay the player salaries, but those salaries are poverty-level wages — scratch that, poverty-level wages would be an improvement on what most of the players are taking home. The “surplus” value, the profits generated by these players, are more than enough for MLB to be able to reinvest back into not just the players, but the places they are playing.

Continue reading “Mets’ renovated spring training clubhouse a reminder of gap between MLB and MiLB”

Category: Labor

MLB is forcing MiLB players to leave spring training, without pay or hope

Mavericks will pay arena workers during coronavirus suspension, but what about every other team?

The MLBPA filed another grievance against the Pirates

The History of Baseball Unionization: The Players Protective Association

The History of Baseball Unionization: The Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players

Giants raise MiLB player wages, subsidize housing (for some)

Anthony Rizzo calls out the Cubs, MLB, and he’s not wrong

Here’s why MiLB players won’t be paid for appearing in MLB The Show

Mets’ renovated spring training clubhouse a reminder of gap between MLB and MiLB

MLB, Dodgers, Red Sox all worked to harm players’ values this weekend