MiLB Unionization Effort Takes Big Step Forward

Editor’s Note: The story has been updated to reflect that the MLBPA’s approval vote took place last week and ballots will be emailed not mailed.

For years, advocates on minor league players’ behalf have dreamed that those minor leaguers would one day have a union like their Major League Baseball brethren.

On Sunday, that possibility took a big step toward becoming a reality.

As first reported by ESPN, the MLB Players Association is sending ballot cards to non-union minor league players. The MLBPA has since announced that it is attempting to unionize the minors. The organization Advocates for the Minor Leagues, led by Harry Marino, has announced that its group has suspended its operations and that every one of the organization’s employees has accepted a position at the MLBPA to work toward that goal of unionization.

“Minor Leaguers represent our game’s future and deserve wages and working conditions that befit elite athletes who entertain millions of baseball fans nationwide,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement. “They’re an important part of our fraternity and we want to help them achieve their goals both on and off the field.”

The MLBPA’s executive committee voted last week to approve the unionization push.

There are no guarantees that this step will lead to minor league players unionizing. First, the MLBPA has to receive ballot cards from 30% of minor league players. It then has to receive approval from more than 50% of those who vote in the unionization election. 

At that point, MLB would have legal avenues it could use to contest the election. If the election is certified, however, MLB would be legally required to recognize the union and negotiate with it on any mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. Such subjects might include wages, hours and working conditions. MLB can also accept the demand for recognition of a union without a secret ballot process, although this is something that rarely happens in unionization drives.

The new union, if approved, would be part of the MLBPA, but it would be its own bargaining unit, much like the AFL-CIO has units that represent workers in many industries. As such, it would negotiate a separate collective bargaining agreement (CBA) from the current version between MLB and the MLBPA.

While draftees and international amateurs are not members of the major league portion of the MLBPA, they are affected by the rules collectively bargained between the MLBPA and MLB.

The draft is one way collective bargaining affects players. During the 2020 and 2021 drafts, as part of the coronavirus pandemic adjustments negotiated between MLB and the MLBPA, nondrafted free agent signing bonuses were capped at $20,000.

Before 2020, nondrafted free agent bonuses had been soft-capped at $125,000. Teams could exceed that amount, but only by spending money from their draft bonus pool. If the NDFA’s bonus amount meant that the team exceeded its bonus pool, it would lead to loss of draft picks and financial penalties, something no team has ever been willing to do.

But for two years that rule changed. Instead of being able to spend up to $125,000 and go beyond that if desired, teams were hard-capped at $20,000 for nondrafted free agent signees. 

As part of the new CBA, this year’s draft rules reverted to what they were before 2020.
It was a very minor adjustment, but that simple reversion to an old rule led to nearly $4 million in additional signing bonuses for 2022 nondrafted free agents. The average signing bonus for nondrafted free agents in 2022 has been roughly double the maximum amount teams were allowed to spend in 2020 and 2021.

In the recently completed MLB-MLBPA negotiations, reverting the NDFA bonus rules wasn’t a headline-grabbing aspect of collective bargaining. But because it had to be negotiated as part of the CBA, dozens of minor league players received two, three or five times as much in their signing bonuses than they would have under the previous rule.

The MLBPA emailed the ballot cards to all minor leaguers in domestic US affiliated leagues. With teams limited to 180 players on minor league rosters, that would be a little more than 5,000 players. Minor leaguers on 40-man rosters are already part of the MLBPA.

The potential effects are significant to both minor league players and the minor leagues as a whole. MLB recently settled a class-action lawsuit filed by minor league players who were not paid for spring training, extended spring training and instructional league. MLB also reduced the number of teams and players as part of its recent negotiations with minor league team owners.

 

There are potential second-order effects that could come from this as well. In 2020, MLB reduced the number of affiliated, ticket-selling minor league clubs from 160 to 120. In the process, it limited each MLB team to four full-season affiliates and eliminated short-season and rookie ball outside of the Florida and Arizona complexes. MLB also capped the number of MiLB players in the U.S. for each team at 180. Before, there had been no fixed maximum number, although teams were limited by the number of roster spots they had,

MLB signed Professional Development Licenses with the current 120 minor league teams. Those PDLs are guaranteed through 2030 as long as the teams meet the facility requirements laid out in the agreement.

While those PDLs do not prevent MLB from further reducing the number of minor league players, the practical effect is to make it more difficult to do so. MLB is contractually obligated to provide players for the 120 full-season minor league clubs for the next eight seasons.

Minor league team owners have expressed concern that minor league player unionization could lead MLB to reduce the number of teams when the current PDL expires in 2030.

That has long been a concern expressed by many minor league team operators. MLB’s attempts to get the MLBPA to codify MLB’s right to reduce minor league rosters to 150 players as part of its most recent CBA negotiations further added to those concerns. The MLBPA did not approve the reduction as part of the CBA. While that does not prevent MLB from doing so anyway, an agreement with the MLBPA would have provided some legal cover to MLB, as it could have shown that it had negotiated such reductions as part of a Collective Bargaining Agreement.

A minor league players’ union would likely make it more difficult for MLB to reduce the number of teams or players. If there is a CBA between minor league players and MLB, any future reductions in the number of permitted minor league players would have to be subject to collective bargaining.

A minor league players’ union would also create the possibility that there could be a lockout or players’ strike in the minors.