Major League Baseball informed its players’ union Friday that it would voluntarily recognize minor leaguers’ efforts to unionize, commissioner Rob Manfred said.
While negotiation points remain, MLB has said it would acknowledge the Major League Baseball Players Association for the first time as the bargaining representative for more than 5,000 minor leaguers.
The union seeks better wages and conditions for non-40-man-roster players, who it contends often live at or below the poverty line, in spite of improvements in housing and salaries in recent seasons.
On Sunday, the MLBPA sent union authorization cards to minor leaguers. By midweek, it informed MLB that it already had a return rate of more than 50 percent and asked that the league waive the more formal process of a National Labor Relations Board election.
League and union executives on Friday exchanged ideas on who would be represented under the minor-league portion of the players’ union, as many players operate as minor and major leaguers in the same season or work in a combination of the two designations. The sides were making headway on that front as of Friday evening, according to people familiar with the process, and there was optimism an authorization agreement could be reached by early next week.
At that point, an independent arbitrator would be called to verify the authorization cards, and that the union does indeed have a majority. Subject to that verification, negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement would begin.
During a press conference Friday that announced several rule changes for the 2023 season, Manfred revealed that the league would grant recognition of the new union, pending the arbitrator’s approval.
“We, I believe, notified the MLBPA today that we’re prepared to execute an agreement on voluntary recognition,” he said. “I think they’re working on the language as we speak.”
MLBPA deputy executive director Bruce Meyer and the former executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers, Harry Marino, are expected to lead the union’s negotiating party.
While the league and the union have had a tumultuous relationship of late—the owners locked out the players for 99 days last winter, ahead of a five-year agreement being reached on a new collective bargaining agreement—there seemed to be little value for the league to delay recognition of a union for minor leaguers. The union’s likely goal is to reach an agreement well ahead of the next minor-league seasons, which begin in late March and early April.
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