Professional baseball adjusting to workers

 

After Major League Baseball owners’ 99-day lockout of players, it’s more obvious than ever that professional baseball needs everyday working people. Whether Major League Baseball or the MLB-subsidized Minor Leagues, baseball’s business leaders cannot rely just on America’s 1%.

 

That’s part of why MLB tries to market to regular families who can’t afford luxury skyboxes, and why minor-league clubs such as the Peoria Chiefs routinely offer promotions aimed at ordinary fans generally and working people in particular.

 

The Chiefs opened their 2022 home games April 12 against Cedar Rapids, and the team unveiled season promotions, including a few involving alternative names and uniforms – one that General Manager Jason Mott said pays tribute to the building trades. 

 

On May 28, July 15 and Sept. 3, Peoria’s ballplayers will take the field as the “Orange Barrels,” a nod to construction on the Murray Baker Bridge and throughout the city.

 

Meanwhile, on April 30, June 17 and July 30, Peoria’s team will wear jerseys reading the Peoria “Pork Tenderloins,” and every Thursday game will have players dress in “Peoria Distillers” uniforms.

Off the field, players and advocates are continuing to point to the poor conditions in which many minor leaguers work. Most players get five months of wages regardless of the year-round demands on their time and bodies.

 

Now, the issue of minor leaguers’ wages, hours and working conditions has caught the attention of state lawmakers who think that states may be able to help where the federal government has been successfully lobbied by MLB. A few state legislatures may be considering protections against poverty-level pay and burdensome contracts that essentially are take-it-or-leave-it pacts since minor leaguers aren’t represented by the MLB Players Association or their own union.

Pay had been between $12,000 and $16,800 a season (for perspective, the federal poverty level for an individual is $12,880).

 

“It’s a few hundred dollars a week paid out only during the season,” said Harry Marino, a former minor-league pitcher who’s now executive director of the nonprofit Advocates for Minor Leaguers group.

Speaking to Pew’s Stateline news service, Marino added, “Guys struggle with housing, nutrition and making ends meet on a fundamental level. The system is outdated, exploitative, and needs to change.”

Mounting pressure from the public, player advocates and athletes themselves may have resulted in modest improvements from MLB – which sets minor-league pay. Minor leaguers’ pay was increased this season, with Class-A minimum weekly salaries rising from $290 to $500, and Triple-A weekly pay increasing from $500 to $700. Also, MLB announced a requirement for teams to furnished housing for most players during the season.

 

That came about despite a Trump-era law that codified a special status for minor leaguers. In 2018, a 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill, on page 1,967, excluded minor-league players from the minimum wage, overtime and other protections in the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.

 

Besides sparking outrage, the possibility of action seems to have happened, as some state lawmakers recognize that minor leaguers are now one of the few classes of U.S. workers whose profession is exempted from federal labor protections.

 

While the act gives the professional baseball industry a shield from federal labor standards, teams still are subject to state laws. Also, MLB officials have said that minor leaguers are seasonal trainees. In February, MLB owners’ lawyer Elise Bloom  told a federal judge that, as traines, minor leaguers should not have to be paid during Spring Training.

“During the training season, the players are not employees,” Bloom said during a hearing in an eight-year-old class-action suit. (His argument was rejected last month and the t set to begin June 1.

Former minor league players have been seeking damages from MLB for violating labor laws in Arizona, California and Florida, so the court fight could provoke proposals to use state labor laws and policies establishing employment status and related protections.

Minor League Baseball’s labor issue has been in dispute for years, but the first attempt to use state laws to provide protections Congress took away may be the Minor League Baseball Players’ Bill of Rights, introduced last month by California state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat.

Becker’s bill would allow players to seek new contracts after four years of service and negotiate wages based on their market value. Its framework would replace the current seven-year contract with MLB’s team-controlled wages that players sign after they’re drafted. It also would allow players to seek compensation from endorsement and autograph opportunities.

 “I was really surprised,” Becker told Stateline reporter Alex Brown. “I’m a big baseball fan, but I didn’t know. I’ve started to hear a lot of different stories.”

Other lawmakers and candidates are getting involved, from Iowa Democrat J.D. Scholten, a former minor league pitcher running for a seat in the state House, to New York state Sen. Jessica Ramos, another Democrat who chairs that state’s Labor Committee.