4562694A070 wrote: The owners worked for years to get the passage of a law that would exempt them from some labor laws so they could continue to depress minor league pay. It passed last year. I really doubt they give that up.
Here's an article from last year:
https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/05/ ... e-over-pay
In a fact sheet, MLB listed average pay for minor league players, ranging from $1,300 per month in the lowest A-level leagues, to $10,000 per month in Triple A. MLB also pointed out that players get one-time signing bonuses ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
Broshuis said he believes his players’ class action lawsuit can proceed under state laws that call for more extensive labor protections than federal law provides.
Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and an Obama administration appointee to the National Labor Relations Board, said that because many minor league players are paid such a low salary — in some cases working out to less than minimum wage for all the hours worked — their lawsuit should proceed.
“We are talking about paying people $7.25 per hour, and time-and-a half when they work over forty hours. These are just bedrock principles of minimum standards,” Block said. And she said that not paying players during spring training flies in the face of other labor law precedent. “Generally, if you are in training and it is for the employer’s benefit, meaning you’re learning to do your job better, you have to be compensated.”
Sports lawyer Kenneth Shropshire, who directs the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University, explained the team owners’ rationale: “If you put in place a regular hourly wage, the amount of time that a ballplayer wants to put in to be great — come in early, stay late — could never be covered, that it would far exceed 40 hours per week.”
Shropshire added: “Economists would say, this is what the market will allow. Although, the minor league baseball players’ lawsuit sort of shows there is a dislike of the marketplace.”
But he believes the owners’ stance resonates with many in the public, including baseball fans: “Isn’t it a luxury to be able to be a professional baseball player — you’re so fortunate to be able to do so, here’s the sacrifice you have to make, but look at the upside if you are successful in the end,” Shropshire said.
Jared Eichelberger, 34, played for the Mets’ and Mariners’ minor league teams from 2005-2007. His father was a professional ballplayer as well.
Eichelberger said living on a minor league salary was a struggle. During the off-season he coached and did moving, construction, and odd jobs.
When the season started, he scrimped and saved on food: “Apples, oranges, bananas, peanut butter and jelly — you’d rush in after batting practice, try to make friends with the concessions people, do whatever you could to eat, because it was almost survival.”
Eichelberger now runs a baseball training business in San Diego. He said if he were a player today, he’d probably support Broshuis’s class-action lawsuit.
But he doesn’t regret having played for peanuts. “There’s nothing like hearing your name on the stadium loudspeaker, putting on your uniform,” he said. “Playing professional baseball was an awesome experience.”
He called those years of living lean a “rite of passage,” well worth the hardship for a shot at the majors.
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