Baseball Players Association Is Rarest of Things: A Strong Union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5259/baseball_players_association_is_rarest_of_things_a_strong_union/

Thursday December 3 7:30 am


Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz listens as Michael Weiner, then General Counsel to the Major League Baseball Players Association, speaks to the media regarding his positive test for a performance enhancing substance, on August 8, 2009, in New York City. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)


By Akito Yoshikane

Baseball fans are accustomed to watching battles on the diamond field. But showdowns between the players' union and the Major League Baseball have been, at times, as contentious as America's pastime itself.

As a new collective bargaining agreement looms in the near future, Donald Fehr, the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, stepped down this week to make way for his successor Michael Weiner, who is preparing to face club owners to negotiate players' next four-year labor contract, which would begin at the start of 2012.

A Harvard educated lawyer who has spent most of his career in baseball, Weiner was unanimously confirmed Wednesday as the union's new executive director at the annual board meetings this week in Scottsdale, Ariz. The 47-year-old will be the fourth person to lead the MLBPA since its formation in 1966, a union that has ascended to become one of the most powerful in all of sports—not to mention the rest of the U.S. economy.

Weiner was recommended by Fehr upon announcing his retirement in June. He will inherit a slew of challenges, ranging from issues surrounding union missteps in drug testing, draft rules, scheduling, revenue sharing and perennial calls for a salary cap.

But if history is an indicator, the odds of an auspicious result are on Weiner's side, as he joins a union that has gained significant improvements for the players over the years.

FULL story at link.

[Brickbat]

1. Back in the day, the NFL Players union (AFL-CIO) honored picket lines.

I saw an article in a labor newspaper from 1973 showing a Minnesota Vikings football player standing outside of Dayton's department store without pants to protest the fact that Dayton's was carrying Farah pants; there was a huge strike against Farah that year.

A football player. Participating in a labor action. Sigh.

[bluestateguy]

2. Unions are for working people, not multimillionaire athletes

I remember being able to go to 10-12 games a season 20 years ago, but now to pay for the inflated salaries in the game, I can usually only afford one game a year.

And few people have done more to fuck up the game than Donald Fehr, who we can thank for there being no World Series and an aborted season in 1994.

And I have also had to watch countless times as my favorite team has been dismantled by free agency because it is a small market team that does not have the money to win a bidding war with George Steinbrenner if he wants one of our players.

[Deja Q]

3. Decades ago, baseball players often had multiple jobs.

For ONCE, this is a case of unions gone mad.

Funny how the union-bashers freely ignore professional pigskin pushing.

Unions definitely are needed, for proper wages that help build up companies - and individuals.

[jtrockville]

4. Those days are LONG gone, but it's a fine example of a union.

MLB can support this kind of compensation.
We all deserve the highest compensation that our industry will support.
Kudos to the union.

[demosincebirth]

6. You must be an A's fan.

[bluestateguy]

7. Yep

nt

[demosincebirth]

5. they may call themselves a union, but the definition of union is

"Labor Union." No labor in what they do. They probably don't even know what AFL-CIO, stands for