The MLB Players Association recently joined the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), reports Evan Drellich of the Athletic. The AFL-CIO is a federation of various unions in different industries throughout the country.
MLBPA executive director Tony Clark pointed to the contentious return to play negotiations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 shutdown and last winter’s lockout as reasons for joining a broader labor federation. “The truth is we reflected on where our organization was, and the things that we potentially could do moving forward as a part of the broader labor discussion, and that’s why we’re here today,” Clark said upon announcing the decision yesterday.
The decision comes at a time when the MLBPA is attempting to vastly expand its membership. The union recently began efforts to incorporate minor leaguers. Just this week, the MLBPA announced that a majority of minor leaguers signed authorization cards that’d demonstrate interest on their part in joining the Players Association. The MLBPA petitioned Major League Baseball to recognize its authority to represent minor leaguers on that basis. If MLB declines to do so, the MLBPA could file a motion with the National Labor Relations Board for an election among minor leaguers. If more than half of those who cast votes do so in favor of unionization, the NLRB would require MLB to recognize the PA’s authority to represent minor leaguers.
“We have engaged the league formally and informally,” Clark said yesterday of the request for voluntary recognition. “We remain hopeful that that conversation and decision will bear fruit. In the event that it doesn’t, we have the opportunity to petition the NLRB and go that route. So I truly think that there is an opportunity for us as an industry to have a conversation here, and a level of engagement that is beneficial for all involved. And we’ll just have to see how that plays out, but we’re encouraged, at least initially, with some of the dialogue that we’ve had. But we’ll have to see.”
It’s tough to know at this point whether the PA’s decision to join the AFL-CIO will have major repercussions on its handling of future discussions with the league. At the very least, it seems to allow Clark, lead negotiator Bruce Meyer and other MLBPA members freer communication with union leaders in other arenas. Labor attorney Eugene Freedman provides a breakdown (Twitter thread) of various benefits in areas like mortgages and car purchases that rank-and-file MLBPA members could now receive as part of AFL-CIO programs. Those aren’t likely to move the needle for major leaguers at the top of the salary scale, but they could be more meaningful for lower-salaried minor leaguers if they’re formally included in the MLBPA over the coming months.
Bring on the anti-union tirades.
How about the “ah-ha, it’s not about me or the game, I’m just the sucker that makes everyone else rich” tirades? That’s nothing but truth…
How about the “ah-ha, it’s not about me, the game or anything else other than me being the sucker that makes everyone else rich” tirades? That all truth…
Ok, how about the “ah-ha, it’s not about me, the game or anything else other than me being the sucker that makes everyone else rich” tirades? That all truth…
Felt like news that would be reported by a man of the workers, Craig Calcatarra
He’s a hack.
Apparently they don’t want us to post any comments.
You posted the same ridiculous comment multiple times with slight different wording.
Sarcasm? You posted like twenty.
I am sure there will now be a coffee break every 3 innings.
Not sure what, if anything, the MLBPA has in common with AFL-CIO.
Arnold Ziffel;
Check out a list of the organizations the AFL-CIO represents today by searching easily on the Internet.
They pretty much ruined most industries their workers were in, so their membership dwindled when those companies had to be downsized.
Wrong. Those industries ruined themselves by their own greed. Living in Michigan all my life saw business after business leave the state for the south due to that greed. Then they left the south to go to Mexico because of that greed. Nw moving to China because of that greed. Stop blaming workers for wanting fair treatment and fair wages. Blame greedy business owners.
It’s definitely the greedy business owners. It couldn’t possibly be the taxes, governmental inefficiency, or union regulations.
tigerdoc – This is the biggest misunderstanding that many people have about business and profit. If you’re a public corporation, your job is to be competitive and make a profit for your shareholders. The markets are global and your competitors are global too. If you’re going to survive and thrive as a corporation, you have to be competitive which means keeping costs in check. So, companies are always looking for ways to cut costs and finding locations with lower taxes, more efficient labor, better work rules, etc. achieves this.
If you want to keep corporations in your state, you need to provide an environment for them to be successful. Unfortunately, our state and federal governments didn’t (and many still don’t) understand this and instead made it harder and harder to make a profit. Union rules also didn’t help because they drove inefficiency by setting up ridiculous limitations on workforce management and flexibility while commanding very high pay levels.
So, when nottinghamforest commented, “It couldn’t possibly be the taxes, governmental inefficiency, or union regulations”, he hits the nail on the head.
Shareholders….. Seemingly more important than the customer and craftsmen making the product possible. How many companies have gone public only to see profit goals ruin the product? Greed is the problem.
Who went to China with Nixon? heads of the largest corporations. They are the ones who moved manufacturing to China or any other countries with cheal labor. When union workers lost jobs they lost buying power. governments
had to provide them extra income not to ruin the ecconomy.
A union for the minor leaguers sounds logical. Just not sure the MLB players have a commonality of interest.
This is very weird, imo.
Good. The only way American workers will begin to crawl out of the hole they’ve been shoved into since the 70’s through ownership’s relentless — and successful — brainwashing of workers to hate unions, is a resurgence of the union movement in this country.
So anyone who is not part of a union is incapable of being successful?
Is that your version of logic?
I’m asking a legitimate question. You seemed to suggest that life has been miserable for anyone foolish enough to believe anti-union propaganda. Did I misunderstand what seems to be very clearly laid out in your statement?
I guess I have to quote you: “So anyone who is not part of a union is incapable of being successful?”
That’s a nonsense question. Ownership has certainly been successful. Lots of small business owners have been successful. The question misses the point.
American wages have stagnated for decades. American workers enjoy far fewer benefits, get lower wages, work longer hours, and have far less job security than workers in every advanced, industrialized nation in Europe. Why? Because those European workers are unionized and most American workers aren’t.
An American worker can make a comfortable living in a non-union shop, but the decimation of the union movement in this country has entirely benefited ownership at the expense of labor. And American workers have been brainwashed by management and their political errand boys into hating unions and voting consistently against their own and their families’ best interests.
As an economist, I strongly disagree, but we’re not going to solve this here and now so we’ll just leave it at that for now.
Uh-huh.
Economist? I think you meant “Charlatan.”
Unions that represent and advocate for workers are generally good. The skepticism comes from unions in the past that did very little, were way out of touch, and were corrupt and/or tied to organized crime.
The mob are ruthless thugs. They bullied their way into the unions, and it was law enforcement’s job to prosecute them and get them out. I think “On the Waterfront” was a pretty fair depiction of the bind that the members of mob-held unions were in.
The mob also muscled their way into the construction industry; they dominated the gaming industry in Las Vegas, Reno and Atlantic City; they corrupted police departments and politicians; and they corrupted the financial industry to run securities scams and launder money.
When I was a kid, a neighbor tried to hire an independent contractor to pick up their family’s trash. The neighbor told my parents that the poor guy came to their door one day soon afterwards, his face all beaten-up, to tell them he couldn’t pick up their trash anymore: “You didn’t tell me you already had the other outfit picking up your trash before.”
I don’t blame the union members. I blame the mob, and law enforcement and politicians who wouldn’t stand up to them and/or got in bed with them.
Fink there is a great Simpsons episode where Grandpa talks about the “strike busting days.” Classic stuff.
Exactly.
Reminds me of the old Alan Sherman song, “Beautiful teamsters, please let me join. I can’t drive a truck but I’m willing to loin.”
The mob wormed their way into a lot of things in their heyday. Unions didn’t invent the mob. Unions and their members were some of the many victims of these criminal conspiracies.
Grandpa Simpson: “Well we can’t bust heads like we used to but we have our ways..Sometimes you just tell stories that go nowhere..”
Next will be the “baseball players bill of rights”…
The AFL-CIO has sucked the life out of everything it has touched. Sorry to hear this news, but not surprised.
Enjoy your daily triple venti latte from union-busting Starbucks or cheap books purchased through the equally anti-union Amazon.
Interesting. But I think it shows how serious the MLBPA is in organizing the minor league players. Good. Well past due.
I simply take this step as an open acknowledgment that even Tony Clark knows he’s terrible at his job, so instead of surrendering it, he’s getting help from other people who do it better.
Haha YC I don’t even remember you having a profile pic before. Good stuff haha
Clark admitted that 6 years ago when he hired Bruce Meyer to do all the negotiating.
Ah so the mafia is getting involved now…..
Well beside the some crooked umps throwing games
Mobs found ways to make money not being involved in unions or killing each other.
They are invesing money to make money like everyone else.
Cosplay.
Unions = communism. Communism = failure.
SMH
Did you have a good time on Labor Day?
The National Association for the Protection of Labour was established in England in 1830. The Communist Manifesto wasn’t published until 1848. The first labor strike in the U.S. was organized by a union of printers in Philadelphia in 1786, 32 years before Marx was born.
But, hey — many people are saying that serfdom was a great arrangement and workers had it better back then.
It’s amazing how many people are afraid to think independently or actually read a book on a given subject these days.
“Unions are bad because the guy on TV told me they are…” smh
Red – that’s possibly the most misinformed statement on here
Who else was both anti-union and anti-Communist? The NSDAP in Germany, the ruling party of a Thousand-Year Reich whose totalitarian regime ended in ruins.
Who else was both anti-union and anti-communist? The NSDAP, ruling party of the Third Reich.
Tony Clark has done a great job of turning the MLBPA into a political organization, and now he seals the deal.
It was Clark who was the driving force behind the removal of the ASG from Atlanta, after Georgia dared to install reasonable voter integrity rules, similar to those in most other states, because “racism and suppression.”
Those laws weren’t made for any other reason than Trump breaking his hymen because he lost, legit lost.
@MJFox, you may not be aware because of the ‘new’ biology being taught, but men don’t have hymens…
LOL The multi-millionaires union needs help from the rank and file blue collar union.
This is rich, no pun intended.
Did you not read the article about the majority of minor leaguers voting to designate MLBPU as their union.
Apparently the minor league ballplayers were deceived into voting to join, or their belief it would improve their situation is delusional. No other possible explanation!
I want to see if the MLB players start going on strike in solidarity with their union brothers if they go out on strike. Do they also plan on giving money to support woke social causes? They really seem to want to turn the remaining customers off to the game of baseball.
I’d like to say “go woke, go broke”, but it’s clear with many of the comments here that even baseball fandom (and apparently enough baseball players, too) has been ruined by the new progressive left that has to interject its politics into everything and force everyone to accept its worldview. Why can’t at least baseball be left alone. Most sports have already been ruined and baseball is well on its way. Sad.
LMAO! Take a look at yourself in a mirror once in a while.
@aragon, my views were not force interjected into culture for generations, hence where we are today. Just because there is now a competition for how to structure society between right and wrong and good and evil, people like you are trying to play ‘whataboutism’. Sorry, bud, but we’re headed for division in all facets of life, even silly things like sports. This is thanks to activists on the left, not to people on the right.
Aragon your Swastika is showing.
Pure horse hockey, and another perfect example of someone doing exactly what they accuse others of doing.
@blue, sorry, but it’s the left that’s guilty of projection. Conservatives have only begun to fight back and we’re now stuck with a bifurcated future thanks to the left. Show me the evidence that culture was inundated with conservative views over the last several generations. Alternatively, progressive ideals have been pushing culture for generations, including and most sadly to me, in sports. I’d love to just talk about how the Dodgers get more out of their previously mediocre pitchers than Padres, but we have Roberts and Kapler (and the Popovichs and Kerrs) using their popularity and platforms to lecture society on how we need to be more woke.
Howl at the moon much?
@blue, well that’s a reference I don’t get. Are you calling me a werewolf? An ad hominum (and a weak one at that) does not advance your argument. I guess you agree that only the left has been pushing their agenda in places it doesn’t belong. Glad we agree and can get back to baseball. You think May will walk a lot of Padres tonight like last time or do you think he’ll strike out more than 10?
Don’t you think it’s brazenly hypocritical to post your own political screed and then complain about politics on a baseball message board, PhDPad? Looks like you want to be the exception to your own rules.
@fink, fair enough. However, my desire to get back to only baseball discussions keeps getting interrupted by woke garbage. My initial reason for adding this comment here also includes a lament that a large number of fans apparently support this ‘stuff’. If I say nothing, it could be interpreted as tacit acceptance by all fans. It’s kind of a damned if I do, damned if I don’t situation.
How about this deal: you convince MLB.TV to stop pushing their horrible ‘science mom’, pubic hair shaving jingles, and CohnReznick ESG garbage commercials on me while I’m trying to simply watch a game (especially when the Dodgers are embarrassing my Padres again) and I’ll refrain from injecting comments on politics here at MLBTR.
Why should I complain to MLB.TV about what bothers you? Do you not know how to mute commercials, or would that deprive you of the joy of playing the victim and having things to complain about?
Looks like the spirit of discord is having it’s way in MLB.
Proverbs 20:3
It is honorable for a man to resolve a dispute,
but any fool can get himself into a quarrel.
“Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” – James 5:4
“The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of his fury will fail.” – Proverbs 22:7-8
“Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth,
or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.” – Proverbs 22:16
“Do you see a man skillful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men.” – Proverbs 22:29
Fink, all appropriate. Appreciate the reminders.
The issue for me is the contentiousness of the relationship between the two that’s been in place.
It’s a picture of how the enemy has has a stronghold. People open the door, lay the welcome mat out & in he comes, laughing at how easily he can accomplish his mission of steal, kill & destroy.
“Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage.”
Ephesians 6:12 TPT
All due respect, you’re using scripture inappropriately to define labor negotiations as a satanic activity. Please don’t do that. Worse, you’re literally demonizing workers. I trust you remember who said: “The worker is worthy of his wages.”
Fink, I’m for both the players & owners. This isn’t about Labor Negotiations to me, nor am I demonizing either side. To me, it’s the spirit of darkness operating against both sides. It’s what the enemy does.
He endeavors to make his way into relationships. He’s the master at dividing people through lies & deception. Marriages, businesses & on-line baseball communities like ours. He doesn’t care. As long as he can destroy what God has said is good.
Every one of the people in this community is important to me. I don’t have to see or meet them in person to do spiritual battle on their behalf when the enemy is coming against them.
I’m for the Players to be treated fairly, commensurate with the the value they create, both at the MILB & MLB levels. That includes staff, coaches & all personnel.
I’m for the owners who provide an opportunity for all those who are a part of the game. I desire that they profit, so more can be invested in not only the game, but supply resources to those outside the game.
I’m only against one. The father of lies, the deceiver & his minions. I have no place for him & am completely intolerant of his activities.
Blessings on you, brother.
When workers negotiate for their share of a profitable activity, they’re not responding to promptings from the Devil. Not every dispute is evidence of a satanic stratagem. Paul disputed with the Pharisees and Sadducees. Was he acting under the influence of the Devil?
If you see everything through that lens, you’re in danger of entering the same territory as fanatics burning witches in the colonies and torturing mentally ill people suffering from chemical imbalances in their brains to exorcise imaginary demons when none are at work.
This sort of thing isn’t limited to Christian cultures, btw. I read a case of a shaman in Thailand who beat a woman to death with the tail of a stingray to “exorcise” the supposed demon inside her. In reality, she had suffered from a motor disorder that made her appear to be mentally ill.
I must say, regardless of one’s position on the issue at-hand, I throughly enjoy, appreciate, and applaud taking a position from a biblical perspective and using Scripture as the basis for that opinion. What a welcome, refreshing change from the more common morally relative, subjective perspectives that typically pervade these conversations.
Enjoyed the read guys, thanks.