MLB is reportedly lobbying Congress to keep minor leaguers from earning minimum wage
All over Florida and Arizona this spring, some of the best baseball players on the planet are essentially doing volunteer work in the service of cash-flush Major League organizations: Though spring training is a mandatory part of a player’s route to the Majors, minor leaguers do not get compensated for the seven-day weeks they work honing their skills in spring training. Though some top-flight international and domestic prospects receive seven-figure signing bonuses, the standardized salary scale for players in their first pro contracts means most of them make less than fast food workers earn on both an hourly and yearly basis, and less than the national minimum wage established by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
In 2016, two Congresspersons — both of whom received campaign donations from MLB’s PAC — introduced an MLB-supported bill called the “Save America’s Pastime Act” to exempt the league from the terms of the FLSA. Press materials supporting the bill suggested that paying minimum wage and overtime pay to minor leaguers would bankrupt beloved minor league teams, but Major League organizations pay the salaries of their minor-league players. One of the bill’s sponsors pulled her support for it after backlash over its misrepresented premise, and it ultimately went nowhere.
But now, according to a report from Mike DeBonis in the Washington Post, the league could score a similar exemption thanks to a provision in an upcoming government spending bill. DeBonis writes:
A massive government spending bill that Congress is expected to consider this week could include a provision exempting Minor League Baseball players from federal labor laws, according to three congressional officials familiar with the talks….
(Minor League Baseball president Pat) O’Conner said the litigation underway represents an existential threat to minor league clubs, which could see their business model upended if courts rule that players must be paid according to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Post’s whole report is worth a read. The litigation referenced in the excerpt above — a lawsuit first filed against MLB and its teams in 2014 and currently hung up in the appeals process over its class-action certification — names 45 current and former minor league players as named plaintiffs and will include over 2,000 more if it maintains its class-action status. Last year, Kyle Johnson, a minor league outfielder since cut from the Mets’ organization, became the first active player to speak out on his involvement in the case in an interview with For The Win.
Former minor league pitcher turned attorney Garrett Broshuis, who is representing the players in the suit, spoke to For The Win by phone on Monday in the wake of the Washington Post report.
“They’re trying to back-door it into the spending bill,” he explained. “It’s all happening in secret, behind closed doors, so we have limited knowledge just like everyone else has limited knowledge.”
With no specifics on what’s to be included in the spending bill, Broshuis would not speculate about its potential impact on the future of the lawsuit. Minor league players, understandably, remain reluctant to attempt to unionize or even speak out on behalf of their wages. But salary growth in the minors over the past 40 years hasn’t even been nearly enough to account for inflation, and Broshuis says he knows players are keeping tabs on the litigation.
“I have players who routinely reach out to me,” he said. “They realize it’s a problem; this is not something that has developed overnight. It’s the result of MLB and teams ignoring minor leaguers for decades now, to the point where they are paying sub-minimum wages. It’s difficult for guys to rent an apartment and pay the bills. Guys realize something needs to be done, and they’re hopeful something will be done.”
Source:-http://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/03/mlb-minor-leaguers-congress-spending-bill-fair-labor-standards-act-minimum-wage-salary
