Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) will officially represent minor league baseball players. This is truly a shocking development which was a mere dream just weeks before the executive board of the MLBPA undertook the efforts a few weeks ago.
As noted by Drellich, agents and players alike were surprised when voting cards were sent to minor leaguers. Arbirtator Martin Scheinman verified enough voting cards had been collected from the minor leaguers, and Major League Baseball has already announced they will not object to minor leaguers joining the union. MLB’s uncontested recognition of the vote meant it is effective now.
Typically speaking the results of the vote are not published, but AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler called the card check, i.e. vote, “overwhelming victorious.”
In some ways, this began in March 2020 in an effort led by Garrett Broshuis and the Advocates of Minor Leaguers. Harry Marino, an executive director for Advocates of Minor Leaguers, said of the vote:
For decades, conventional wisdom said it was impossible to unionize Minor Leaguers. Over the past few years, a group of audacious and committed folks came together to prove that wrong. Each and every person who spent time working on behalf of minor leaguers in recent years shares in today’s victory.
With this vote, the membership of the MLBPA will explode. More than that, it creates a lot of work ahead for the MLBPA as they seek to collectively bargain on behalf of minor leaguers. This is complicated because in the past, the union would negotiate some minor leaguers rights away in order to secure a better deal for major leaguers. That includes issues like service time manipulation, the draft, and frankly, just flat out ignoring the failure to pay minor leaguers a living wage.
In addition to those issues, the MLBPA now has to undertake issues related to playing conditions in places like the Dominican Summer League. There also remains issues related to living wages. On that and the vote, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said, “This historic achievement required the right group of players at the right moment to succeed. Minor Leaguers have courageously seized that moment, and we look forward to improving their terms and conditions of employment through the process of good faith collective bargaining.”
It would appear both sides are eager to get a deal done sooner rather than later. In fact, both want something in place before the start of the 2023. It will be interesting to see what can be accomplished by then and just how much the landscape of minor league baseball will be forever changed.
