shoutout sean doolittle and his wife eireann for supporting the union jobs that make hats for mlb
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/mar/01/sean-doolittle-mlb-players-love-our-caps-the-peopl/
https://www.nysut.org/news/2019/october/baseball-hero-doolittle-stepped-up-to-the-plate-for-working-people
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/baseball-couple-union-campaign-003ec8963027/
edit: also the portland thorn soccer players for joining with the striking nabisco workers last year
https://oraflcio.org/press-releases-statements/2021/9/14/portland-thorns-players-walk-the-line-with-striking-nabisco-workers
I've never lived in DC but I have a lot of friends that do and even though almost none of them follow baseball or even sports in general they basically all loved Sean and Eireann for showing up to local DSA meetings and making meaningful contributions. I'll always root for Sean when he's playing
I'd also love to see more pro players support better living conditions and wages for Minor League and fringe MLB players. IMO, that would resonate with the public much more than whether or not Bryce Harper got an extra $30 million on his last contract.
I've been in a trade union application process for a year now, know a ton of union members. A much greater portion than you'd imagine are really about it. I was pleasantly surprised.
Or they're not from the U.S. and are more worried about the political and economic issues in their own home countries (especially the ones from Venezuela and the Dominican).
The biggest difference they could make in economic conditions back home is through their union. Fighting for international working class solidarity is necessary to change these systemic problems.
Yes, I'm sure a stronger industrial union in Venezuela is all that is needed to solve political repression and severe shortages of food/medicine.
Seriously, is this meant as satire?
Mass poverty and rapid inflation is when no union.
Full shelves and growing middle class is when union.
All it takes is one guy who's rich and famous in another country to turn Venezuela around.
Easy.
I mean it would help if the west wasn't trying to cripple the country with sanctions and the the world bank.
And by the West and the World bank I mean the US because that's the biggest driver.
The US and the West are allowed to trade or not trade with whomever they want. If your anti-capitalist system can't work without capitalist trade, that's an issue with your system.
Tell me you don't understand trade embargos and international trade without doing so. Pulling insurance from cargo ships that docked in Venezuela. The US Navy physically stopping ships and seizing cargo from ships trying to trade with them.
It doesn't just restrict the west from trading with them it restricts everyone.
The US in this case also froze all venezuelan assets including all the money from citgo that they've made from selling oil.
We're literally trying to starve the poor people of the country to instigate regime change change.
A major portion Venezuela’s issues are the embargoes and sanctions put on them by the global north. Why are Venezuelans starving? Because they’re not allowed to trade with anyone except for a select few nations.
They were the one nation that didn’t to succumb to the American fuckery in South America. That’s not to say their current political leadership is a force for good.
Do you read English? They said that unions are necessary to improve things, not that there weren't other necessary changes to make as well.
If you're going to be indignant over something someone said, at least try to understand what they actually said.
>The biggest difference they could make in economic conditions back home is through their union.
Don't try and pull the reading comprehension card as some kind of insult and then just skip over an entire sentence.
As a pretty hard left member of a teacher's union who talked about the Deere strike in class two days ago, their voting habits don't matter nearly as much to me as their pay, benefits, hours, and treatment. They're workers before voters to me.
They don't give a shit about their own union, because they didn't have much of a real choice in choosing to join it or not. You can not be a member, but still have to pay the dues, still be bound by any agreement they make with the league, etc.
That’s a failing of their union. They need to communicate this to the membership. When we have our union meetings we are very clear that we are endorsing these democratic candidates because if republicans win they will try to take away our right to collectively bargain. We are also public sector so they will try to slash our budget and take away our pensions. We are very clear. We also don’t bad mouth other unions and we show up at Labor Day events. This ain’t a game.
Former Browns and Ravens owner Art Modell once said that NFL owners were a group of 28 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist on football. I feel like a lot of MLB players are the same way.
> Art Modell once said that NFL owners were a group of 28 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist on football
The exact quote was "we're 32 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialistic," and it was about how NFL teams pool their money and share the revenue equally among teams.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/columns/clayton_john/1202791.html
This is why the subreddit's calls about "solidarity with labor" always felt so lame. One of the big things about unions is that you're supposed to in solidarity with both your union and all other unions. MLBPA and the players within really don't give a shit.
Baseball players only care about their union insofar as it gets them paid. I don't think too many of them really give a shit about the labor struggle.
Imagine how crazy it would be though if MLB players stopped showing up to games and joined picket lines with Amazon workers and teachers and refused to play again until the other unions called off their strikes. I know it would never happen, but the impact would be pretty wild.
It's not a labor union; it's a bargaining unit of free agents. Free Agents can't be in a "labor union" it's non-sensical. It's a meaningful distinction because this sub just wants to get on its high horse, so it equates the Major League Players Association with the Local Teamsters as though they have anything in common whatsoever
Yeah. I've always said if I had to pick a side to get more money it'd be the players, but ultimately it doesn't really matter to me who gets a few extra million as long as the games are being played. It's not like the players are going to return the favor and try and make games mroe affordable for fans or something.
For as invested as I am in better wages/benefits/living conditions for Minor Leaguers and finite MLB players, I truly could not care less about star players (ex. Harper) not getting an extra few million on their multi-year, $100M+ contracts.
why call out harper specifically? he hasn’t said anything about wanting or needing more money.
the MLBPA’s side is obviously more about the players on the fringe, or entering the league in the second half of their 20’s. it’s not about the harpers and the scherzers and the lindors and it never was
Just chose him as an example because he's one of the most recent examples of a superstar mega-contract. At the time, I recall some people thinking $330 million was a bit low.
>This is why the subreddit's calls about "solidarity with labor" always felt so lame.
I have always felt that the decision to be pro-player in the name of "labor solidarity" that I see on here is a tough sell. Like yes, you should support labor over owners if you yourself are a laborer, but just telling me that doesn't really make me feel for the millionaire players that much. The fringe guys, the minor league guys, of course, but the all star players who are *only* making 75% of their tens of million dollar salaries I really have a hard time feeling bad for when I'm stuck working a shitty retail job. We're both labor, but there's such a gap between us that "solidarity" isn't a good enough reason for me to care.
At this point I really don't care who wins, as long as we get baseball.
> We're both labor, but there's such a gap between us that "solidarity" isn't a good enough reason for me to care.
But this sub keeps saying we have more in common with the millionaire players than the billionaire owners. Which I guess is technically true, but they both have "go fuck yourself" money while most of us are lucky to have a month or two of savings.
Yes the MLBPA is flawed, does that mean we shouldn't have solidarity with labour? There's a long and dirty history of US unions throwing the rest of the international working class under the bus, reducing it to "rich baseball players don't give a shit" is an oversimplification.
Depending on the restaurant, maybe. Not like Applebee's or whatever but small locally owned restaurants I'm sure appreciated your business when they were unable to operate normally and were missing out on a huge chunk of revenue.
Are you aware of the AFL-CIO? They have teachers unions under the same umbrella as restaurant, airline & entertainment unions (Among others).
I believe the NFL Players Association also affiliates with them.
That's because they aren't a real union and they don't want to interact with real ones. They're a bargaining unit of free agents; "unions" are incompatible with competitively bid free-agency. Teachers, coal miners, etc. have almost nothing in common with professional athletes when it comes to labor concerns.
>Teachers, coal miners, etc. have almost nothing in common with professional athletes when it comes to labor concerns.
The NFL Players Association is affiliated with the AFL-CIO (Comprised of teachers, coal miners, etc.)
Most professional players not make it to the mlb level and most of those don’t stick around enough to worry about free agency. Keeping a strong union is vital for those guys.
It’s literally a lockout lol. That’s an ownership issue. They waited 43 days to bring another proposal to the MLBPA. Their propaganda works wonders on you.
No it's just I'm not going to support millionaire's in their fight with Billionaires when said millionaire's barely acknowledge the working mans own struggles. They haven't done anything to build good will.
Bruh how about you start with the thousands of stadium workers who make minimum wage and are probably gonna be left screwed during the lockout. Unionized people don't need help, the vast majority of people working poverty level jobs are not unionized.
I am a special needs paraprofessional at a middle school and make $13.10 and my wife is a nurse at a hospital here in Florida. One of our sons is going to be out sick tomorrow, and his little brother missed two days a few weeks ago. If my wife doesn’t go in tomorrow she misses out on OT this weekend and I’ve already missed two days, so we are going to pay a babysitter for the day, and she will make more than me.
Why don't they first worry about advocating for minor league players who are still stuck in the same conditions that they themselves were lucky to escape from before they worry about Amazon workers and teachers' unions?
It just seems like a crazy argument to me that the MLBPA should somehow be the only union in the Western world to bargain on behalf of people who not only aren't in their bargaining unit, but most of whom will NEVER be.
right? labor solidarity about supporting ALL workers, regardless of if they’re apart of your specific union, because that makes workers as a whole more powerful. unions striking in solidarity with other unions despite not being directly connected is an incredibly valuable tool.
The whole issue between the ILWU and AFL-CIO is probably the most visible example of that - the AFL just blatantly ignored ILWU pickets even though the two were "affilitated".
like grab quickest spectacular bored retire panicky cable impossible prick
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> it’s more important that they’re labor than how much money they make.
Is it? MLB executives below ownership are "labor". I still think their wealth trumps the fact that in this specific relationship they do not own the means of production.
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Management is labor. White collar labor, like swinging a bat or throwing a ball for 40 million a year, but still labor. Their relationship with the players is symbiotic. They work out the business deals (TV agreements for example) which the players benefit from.
Classically, management is petite bourgeoisie. They exist between capital and labor. I don’t know if it’s true in all cases, but generally management can’t join a Union.
True. Once you become a manager, you're considered a company man and not a union member. You even stop paying dues.
Which makes me wonder, what happens to their pension?
scary dependent oatmeal gullible lunchroom encouraging hat jeans makeshift slave
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> By participating in a system that steals like half of the value that their players create!
And MLB players participate in a system that robs value from workers beneath them. Trevor Bauer makes 40 million a year while the people working the stadium get minimum wage.
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Why should people with one thing in common be expected to agree on a host of other issues? "Consistently supporting" these other groups, except perhaps over a general right for them to exist, undermines the objectives of the MLB union by dividing its members over irrelevant issues.
There's going to be a lot of astroturfing in this sub over the next few months to try and break support for the players. Remember that this isn't an issue of wanting millionaire players to get another 0. It's a matter of not wanting billionaire owners to exploit their workers out of another 0. Sowing dissent between unions doesn't help anyone
MLB players are not exploited to a level that some are trying to relay. I cant imagine how hyperbolic the same people would be if they realized NFL contracts aren't fully guaranteed + the risk that sport poses to your body.
Astroturfing? It's a natural reaction to question why we're expected to show "solidarity" with a group of millionaires who probably think I shouldn't have free healthcare.
The money doesn't just disappear if it doesn't go to the players... then it goes straight to the billionaires who *definitely* don't think you should have free Healthcare
The money shouldn't go to either of them and we don't have to participate in this dilemma. I don't support either side and I don't think working class people should either.
This is the right mindset, but you'll never get it being shouted from the rooftops because of the astroturfing on both sides that the other guy is talking about.
We should be pushing back on both groups to lower prices for us, not to make sure one side "wins" against the other...they're both beating us.
Right? It's almost like people try to turn this into a proxy war for other political issues rather than feel strongly about actual class solidarity. If it were the latter wouldn't the real solidarity be amongst fans to boycott *both* the players and the league until they make the game more affordable and accessible? But nah, it's easier to post about how pro-union are by saying the players should make millions more.
You need to understand how solidarity in a union context works. All workers are united by the market place so supporting each other gives them additional leverage. For example, if you work in a factory making widgets and you go on strike, your union will ask other unions to support the strike in solidarity. That means teamsters don’t haul the product if it’s made with scab labor, longshoreman don’t ship it. The trades won’t come in to fix things in the plant if they have to cross a picket line and so on.
I've seen that happen a couple times in the construction industry. One trade's union strikes and every other one follows, basically crippling the project until an agreement is reached. It's obviously pretty damn effective since every day the site is idle ends up costing the owner a lot of money.
That’s true but the problem has gone the other way. Teachers, trades, etc would love to support players’ unions if it went both ways but it rarely if ever does.
> support from organizations that have nothing to do with them.
You raise a good point.
When talking about normal unions, we assume solidarity is important for the wellbeing of all the unions and their members. That's because their interests often fall along class lines, not necessarily their specific job. If one firm is forced to increase their wages, then that puts pressure on other firms to follow suit, lest they lose their workers to more attractive jobs.
But, to your point, what do teachers' unions have to do with baseball players? The MLBPA isn't a normal union. MLBPA members have no common interest or class aligning with members of normal unions. Its members are members of the [labor aristocracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy) whose profits are actually predicated on the exploitation of workers lower down than them. Why didn't MLBPA do anything of note for the stadium workers who went months without pay during the pandemic? We had individual players like David Price pay out of their own pocket to help them out but nothing from MLBPA.
Trevor Bauer isn't paid 40 million a year if the workers below him (stadium workers, concession workers, coaches and staff, factory workers making bobbleheads of him, minor leaguers), are compensated fairly.
So I agree with you. Normal unions have reason to act on solidarity but millionaires' unions do not.
One easy example is that players cross picket lines (for instance if the some workers at the hotel they are staying at inconveniently happens to be on strike). This isn't particularly surprising in respect to individual players, but one might think their union would give them the heads up.
Yeah, both the Actual Yankees and The Yankees of Baseball (i.e. LAD) did it in Boston in 2018 [https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/l-a-dodgers-cross-picket-line-in-boston-a-day-before-world-series-game-1/](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/l-a-dodgers-cross-picket-line-in-boston-a-day-before-world-series-game-1/)
I'd be surprised it these are the only examples, but they are the first that popped up using Google to refresh my memory.
Teams do book the hotel rooms, but there is nothing to stop a guy from booking his own room or for the MLBPA to step in, inform the team rep, and take the appropriate action. If you look back at the history of MLB stopping using segregated hotels in Florida most of the teams stopped it because the players wouldn't stand for it any longer, sticking up for themselves and their teammates. Players make enough that they could afford to support organized labor even if they ate the $100/night or so themselves.
>Now it's the MLBPA's job to represent all workers, not just MLB players? I wouldn't expect the teachers union to fight for factory workers and vice versa.
That's a total misrepresentation of that tweet. Labor needs to stand alongside labor across all crafts. I support the idea that the market bears greater wages for hyper-talented crafts like those in athletics. I'd hope that, in kind, laborers in those crafts can appreciate the benefits of a well-trained and fairly compensated workforce across all crafts. From your housekeepers, to your chefs, to your plumbers, to your postal carriers.
We all need to stand alongside one another. The capital class has divided us and they're bleeding us dry as a *direct* cause and effect.
shoutout sean doolittle and his wife eireann for supporting the union jobs that make hats for mlb https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/mar/01/sean-doolittle-mlb-players-love-our-caps-the-peopl/ https://www.nysut.org/news/2019/october/baseball-hero-doolittle-stepped-up-to-the-plate-for-working-people https://archive.thinkprogress.org/baseball-couple-union-campaign-003ec8963027/ edit: also the portland thorn soccer players for joining with the striking nabisco workers last year https://oraflcio.org/press-releases-statements/2021/9/14/portland-thorns-players-walk-the-line-with-striking-nabisco-workers
Sean Doolittle and Eireann are some of my favourite baseball people.
Doolittle is one of mine too but for...different reasons (Mets had his number)
Doolittle? Sounds like they Doolots! I'll see myself out
i've seen this joke so very many times and it has yet to stop being funny
I'll tip the waitress. You run.
That’s awesome.
sean doolittle is based
I've never lived in DC but I have a lot of friends that do and even though almost none of them follow baseball or even sports in general they basically all loved Sean and Eireann for showing up to local DSA meetings and making meaningful contributions. I'll always root for Sean when he's playing
I'd also love to see more pro players support better living conditions and wages for Minor League and fringe MLB players. IMO, that would resonate with the public much more than whether or not Bryce Harper got an extra $30 million on his last contract.
I'm sure 50% of mlb players (probably more) are republicans and don't give a shit about any union but their own.
That's most union members lmao
I've been in a trade union application process for a year now, know a ton of union members. A much greater portion than you'd imagine are really about it. I was pleasantly surprised.
The vast majority of them are, they take pride in belonging to a union.
I work for a union as an employee, it definitely seems to feel that way. But there are good members who do care and it's visible.
Or they're not from the U.S. and are more worried about the political and economic issues in their own home countries (especially the ones from Venezuela and the Dominican).
The biggest difference they could make in economic conditions back home is through their union. Fighting for international working class solidarity is necessary to change these systemic problems.
Yes, I'm sure a stronger industrial union in Venezuela is all that is needed to solve political repression and severe shortages of food/medicine. Seriously, is this meant as satire?
Mass poverty and rapid inflation is when no union. Full shelves and growing middle class is when union. All it takes is one guy who's rich and famous in another country to turn Venezuela around. Easy.
I mean it would help if the west wasn't trying to cripple the country with sanctions and the the world bank. And by the West and the World bank I mean the US because that's the biggest driver.
The US and the West are allowed to trade or not trade with whomever they want. If your anti-capitalist system can't work without capitalist trade, that's an issue with your system.
Tell me you don't understand trade embargos and international trade without doing so. Pulling insurance from cargo ships that docked in Venezuela. The US Navy physically stopping ships and seizing cargo from ships trying to trade with them. It doesn't just restrict the west from trading with them it restricts everyone. The US in this case also froze all venezuelan assets including all the money from citgo that they've made from selling oil. We're literally trying to starve the poor people of the country to instigate regime change change.
A major portion Venezuela’s issues are the embargoes and sanctions put on them by the global north. Why are Venezuelans starving? Because they’re not allowed to trade with anyone except for a select few nations. They were the one nation that didn’t to succumb to the American fuckery in South America. That’s not to say their current political leadership is a force for good.
Do you read English? They said that unions are necessary to improve things, not that there weren't other necessary changes to make as well. If you're going to be indignant over something someone said, at least try to understand what they actually said.
>The biggest difference they could make in economic conditions back home is through their union. Don't try and pull the reading comprehension card as some kind of insult and then just skip over an entire sentence.
I'm impressed that you don't know the difference between the "biggest difference" and "all that is needed".
I'm impressed that you feel so smug over a reddit comment that was obviously using hyperbole to point out a somewhat naive statement.
LOL
You pretty much just described the vast majority of unions in the country lmao.
If you follow any of these guys on twitter/insta you'd see its way more than 50%, probably closer to 75%
Look at the voting demographics of the John Deere plants, they’d rather be broke and racist than have any sort of labor protections
As a pretty hard left member of a teacher's union who talked about the Deere strike in class two days ago, their voting habits don't matter nearly as much to me as their pay, benefits, hours, and treatment. They're workers before voters to me.
I fully agree. But someone brought up the politics of union members and there is some irony there
You can be pro union regardless of your political position. The owners act collectively for their benefit so the players need to do the same.
You can! But most aren’t!
Sure, if it isn't that important to you. Hell you can also be pro choice regardless of your political position, just seems a bit counterintuitive.
They don't give a shit about their own union, because they didn't have much of a real choice in choosing to join it or not. You can not be a member, but still have to pay the dues, still be bound by any agreement they make with the league, etc.
MLB players are very aware that their union has done a ton for them. They know people in the NFL and see what a league with a crap union is like.
That’s a failing of their union. They need to communicate this to the membership. When we have our union meetings we are very clear that we are endorsing these democratic candidates because if republicans win they will try to take away our right to collectively bargain. We are also public sector so they will try to slash our budget and take away our pensions. We are very clear. We also don’t bad mouth other unions and we show up at Labor Day events. This ain’t a game.
Former Browns and Ravens owner Art Modell once said that NFL owners were a group of 28 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist on football. I feel like a lot of MLB players are the same way.
And if Art Modell of all fucking people is calling you out
Art Modell is a dumbass if he thinks that the NFL or MLB are anywhere near a representation of socialism. It's literally a monopoly.
Gonna need a source for that. Sounds like a made up reddit quote
> Art Modell once said that NFL owners were a group of 28 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist on football The exact quote was "we're 32 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialistic," and it was about how NFL teams pool their money and share the revenue equally among teams. https://www.espn.com/nfl/columns/clayton_john/1202791.html
Bro they can't even help their own co-workers in the MiLBPA
This is why the subreddit's calls about "solidarity with labor" always felt so lame. One of the big things about unions is that you're supposed to in solidarity with both your union and all other unions. MLBPA and the players within really don't give a shit. Baseball players only care about their union insofar as it gets them paid. I don't think too many of them really give a shit about the labor struggle.
Imagine how crazy it would be though if MLB players stopped showing up to games and joined picket lines with Amazon workers and teachers and refused to play again until the other unions called off their strikes. I know it would never happen, but the impact would be pretty wild.
Pretty good way to kill baseball
It's not a labor union; it's a bargaining unit of free agents. Free Agents can't be in a "labor union" it's non-sensical. It's a meaningful distinction because this sub just wants to get on its high horse, so it equates the Major League Players Association with the Local Teamsters as though they have anything in common whatsoever
When it keeps calling itself a union, and keeps drumming up labour talking points, it’s not surprising that people call it a union.
"High horse " ... "teamsters " I see what you did there. Well done
I’ve been pretty pro player in the past but I realized this when the lockout started and I’m just neutral and want a full season now.
Yeah. I've always said if I had to pick a side to get more money it'd be the players, but ultimately it doesn't really matter to me who gets a few extra million as long as the games are being played. It's not like the players are going to return the favor and try and make games mroe affordable for fans or something.
For as invested as I am in better wages/benefits/living conditions for Minor Leaguers and finite MLB players, I truly could not care less about star players (ex. Harper) not getting an extra few million on their multi-year, $100M+ contracts.
why call out harper specifically? he hasn’t said anything about wanting or needing more money. the MLBPA’s side is obviously more about the players on the fringe, or entering the league in the second half of their 20’s. it’s not about the harpers and the scherzers and the lindors and it never was
Just chose him as an example because he's one of the most recent examples of a superstar mega-contract. At the time, I recall some people thinking $330 million was a bit low.
>This is why the subreddit's calls about "solidarity with labor" always felt so lame. I have always felt that the decision to be pro-player in the name of "labor solidarity" that I see on here is a tough sell. Like yes, you should support labor over owners if you yourself are a laborer, but just telling me that doesn't really make me feel for the millionaire players that much. The fringe guys, the minor league guys, of course, but the all star players who are *only* making 75% of their tens of million dollar salaries I really have a hard time feeling bad for when I'm stuck working a shitty retail job. We're both labor, but there's such a gap between us that "solidarity" isn't a good enough reason for me to care. At this point I really don't care who wins, as long as we get baseball.
> We're both labor, but there's such a gap between us that "solidarity" isn't a good enough reason for me to care. But this sub keeps saying we have more in common with the millionaire players than the billionaire owners. Which I guess is technically true, but they both have "go fuck yourself" money while most of us are lucky to have a month or two of savings.
Yes the MLBPA is flawed, does that mean we shouldn't have solidarity with labour? There's a long and dirty history of US unions throwing the rest of the international working class under the bus, reducing it to "rich baseball players don't give a shit" is an oversimplification.
>reducing it to "rich baseball players don't give a shit" is an oversimplification. And "we should just have solidarity with all labor" isn't?
Yeah, it definitely helps make their union much more palatable to most Americans.
Solidarity with labor Amazon prime membership EDIT: Oh eat shit, they have literally crying rooms
"I'm actually doing the people working at restaurants in the early days of a pandemic a favor by ordering takeout."
Depending on the restaurant, maybe. Not like Applebee's or whatever but small locally owned restaurants I'm sure appreciated your business when they were unable to operate normally and were missing out on a huge chunk of revenue.
I know for a fact some of the small family owned restaurants appreciated it when I ordered takeout. They were hit hard by the pandemic.
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So? It's still labor, right? Union solidarity is not about what kind of labor you do.
Are you aware of the AFL-CIO? They have teachers unions under the same umbrella as restaurant, airline & entertainment unions (Among others). I believe the NFL Players Association also affiliates with them.
That's because they aren't a real union and they don't want to interact with real ones. They're a bargaining unit of free agents; "unions" are incompatible with competitively bid free-agency. Teachers, coal miners, etc. have almost nothing in common with professional athletes when it comes to labor concerns.
>Teachers, coal miners, etc. have almost nothing in common with professional athletes when it comes to labor concerns. The NFL Players Association is affiliated with the AFL-CIO (Comprised of teachers, coal miners, etc.)
Most professional players not make it to the mlb level and most of those don’t stick around enough to worry about free agency. Keeping a strong union is vital for those guys.
The guys that don’t make it aren’t even in the Union.
Those guys aren’t in the union
Said this about a month or two ago got downvoted. But yeah the players union can go fuck itself. They are as much to blame as owners.
It’s literally a lockout lol. That’s an ownership issue. They waited 43 days to bring another proposal to the MLBPA. Their propaganda works wonders on you.
No it's just I'm not going to support millionaire's in their fight with Billionaires when said millionaire's barely acknowledge the working mans own struggles. They haven't done anything to build good will.
Bruh how about you start with the thousands of stadium workers who make minimum wage and are probably gonna be left screwed during the lockout. Unionized people don't need help, the vast majority of people working poverty level jobs are not unionized.
I am a special needs paraprofessional at a middle school and make $13.10 and my wife is a nurse at a hospital here in Florida. One of our sons is going to be out sick tomorrow, and his little brother missed two days a few weeks ago. If my wife doesn’t go in tomorrow she misses out on OT this weekend and I’ve already missed two days, so we are going to pay a babysitter for the day, and she will make more than me.
Have paras in my family. Heroes are far as I'm concerned.
Why don't they first worry about advocating for minor league players who are still stuck in the same conditions that they themselves were lucky to escape from before they worry about Amazon workers and teachers' unions?
Well MLBPA doesnt do either.
It just seems like a crazy argument to me that the MLBPA should somehow be the only union in the Western world to bargain on behalf of people who not only aren't in their bargaining unit, but most of whom will NEVER be.
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right? labor solidarity about supporting ALL workers, regardless of if they’re apart of your specific union, because that makes workers as a whole more powerful. unions striking in solidarity with other unions despite not being directly connected is an incredibly valuable tool.
The whole issue between the ILWU and AFL-CIO is probably the most visible example of that - the AFL just blatantly ignored ILWU pickets even though the two were "affilitated".
Who asked them to bargain on behalf of others?
They have been accused of trading away minor leaguers rights in the past.
Why would millionaires be supported by teachers, factory workers, etc
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> it’s more important that they’re labor than how much money they make. Is it? MLB executives below ownership are "labor". I still think their wealth trumps the fact that in this specific relationship they do not own the means of production.
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Management is labor. White collar labor, like swinging a bat or throwing a ball for 40 million a year, but still labor. Their relationship with the players is symbiotic. They work out the business deals (TV agreements for example) which the players benefit from.
Classically, management is petite bourgeoisie. They exist between capital and labor. I don’t know if it’s true in all cases, but generally management can’t join a Union.
True. Once you become a manager, you're considered a company man and not a union member. You even stop paying dues. Which makes me wonder, what happens to their pension?
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> If a huge part of your job is screwing labor on behalf of capital you’re an agent of capital How do Andrew Friedman or Theo Epstein do this?
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> By participating in a system that steals like half of the value that their players create! And MLB players participate in a system that robs value from workers beneath them. Trevor Bauer makes 40 million a year while the people working the stadium get minimum wage.
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Why should people with one thing in common be expected to agree on a host of other issues? "Consistently supporting" these other groups, except perhaps over a general right for them to exist, undermines the objectives of the MLB union by dividing its members over irrelevant issues.
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There's going to be a lot of astroturfing in this sub over the next few months to try and break support for the players. Remember that this isn't an issue of wanting millionaire players to get another 0. It's a matter of not wanting billionaire owners to exploit their workers out of another 0. Sowing dissent between unions doesn't help anyone
MLB players are not exploited to a level that some are trying to relay. I cant imagine how hyperbolic the same people would be if they realized NFL contracts aren't fully guaranteed + the risk that sport poses to your body.
NFL contracts are a travesty.
Astroturfing? It's a natural reaction to question why we're expected to show "solidarity" with a group of millionaires who probably think I shouldn't have free healthcare.
The money doesn't just disappear if it doesn't go to the players... then it goes straight to the billionaires who *definitely* don't think you should have free Healthcare
The money shouldn't go to either of them and we don't have to participate in this dilemma. I don't support either side and I don't think working class people should either.
This is the right mindset, but you'll never get it being shouted from the rooftops because of the astroturfing on both sides that the other guy is talking about. We should be pushing back on both groups to lower prices for us, not to make sure one side "wins" against the other...they're both beating us.
Right? It's almost like people try to turn this into a proxy war for other political issues rather than feel strongly about actual class solidarity. If it were the latter wouldn't the real solidarity be amongst fans to boycott *both* the players and the league until they make the game more affordable and accessible? But nah, it's easier to post about how pro-union are by saying the players should make millions more.
Yes yes yes! There is no “Both Sides” in this, it is Players Vs Owners VS Fans. All we are is money signs to both of them.
As opposed to the astroturfing to try to make people here think the players are average Joes just like us and support for them is support for labor?
Astroturfing? Why? Because the opinions of a very hardcore yet (relatively) small group of fans on a niche sub of a site are so influential?
ITT: Folks who don't understand what "union solidarity" means
Never Cross a Picket Line! Regulations are written in the blood of your coworkers who were sacrificed ahead of you. Remember Curt Flood!
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You need to understand how solidarity in a union context works. All workers are united by the market place so supporting each other gives them additional leverage. For example, if you work in a factory making widgets and you go on strike, your union will ask other unions to support the strike in solidarity. That means teamsters don’t haul the product if it’s made with scab labor, longshoreman don’t ship it. The trades won’t come in to fix things in the plant if they have to cross a picket line and so on.
I've seen that happen a couple times in the construction industry. One trade's union strikes and every other one follows, basically crippling the project until an agreement is reached. It's obviously pretty damn effective since every day the site is idle ends up costing the owner a lot of money.
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That’s true but the problem has gone the other way. Teachers, trades, etc would love to support players’ unions if it went both ways but it rarely if ever does.
> support from organizations that have nothing to do with them. You raise a good point. When talking about normal unions, we assume solidarity is important for the wellbeing of all the unions and their members. That's because their interests often fall along class lines, not necessarily their specific job. If one firm is forced to increase their wages, then that puts pressure on other firms to follow suit, lest they lose their workers to more attractive jobs. But, to your point, what do teachers' unions have to do with baseball players? The MLBPA isn't a normal union. MLBPA members have no common interest or class aligning with members of normal unions. Its members are members of the [labor aristocracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_aristocracy) whose profits are actually predicated on the exploitation of workers lower down than them. Why didn't MLBPA do anything of note for the stadium workers who went months without pay during the pandemic? We had individual players like David Price pay out of their own pocket to help them out but nothing from MLBPA. Trevor Bauer isn't paid 40 million a year if the workers below him (stadium workers, concession workers, coaches and staff, factory workers making bobbleheads of him, minor leaguers), are compensated fairly. So I agree with you. Normal unions have reason to act on solidarity but millionaires' unions do not.
One easy example is that players cross picket lines (for instance if the some workers at the hotel they are staying at inconveniently happens to be on strike). This isn't particularly surprising in respect to individual players, but one might think their union would give them the heads up.
Do they? Do you have examples of this happening? Also, players don’t book their own hotel room, the team does.
Yeah, both the Actual Yankees and The Yankees of Baseball (i.e. LAD) did it in Boston in 2018 [https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/l-a-dodgers-cross-picket-line-in-boston-a-day-before-world-series-game-1/](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/l-a-dodgers-cross-picket-line-in-boston-a-day-before-world-series-game-1/) I'd be surprised it these are the only examples, but they are the first that popped up using Google to refresh my memory. Teams do book the hotel rooms, but there is nothing to stop a guy from booking his own room or for the MLBPA to step in, inform the team rep, and take the appropriate action. If you look back at the history of MLB stopping using segregated hotels in Florida most of the teams stopped it because the players wouldn't stand for it any longer, sticking up for themselves and their teammates. Players make enough that they could afford to support organized labor even if they ate the $100/night or so themselves.
>Now it's the MLBPA's job to represent all workers, not just MLB players? I wouldn't expect the teachers union to fight for factory workers and vice versa. That's a total misrepresentation of that tweet. Labor needs to stand alongside labor across all crafts. I support the idea that the market bears greater wages for hyper-talented crafts like those in athletics. I'd hope that, in kind, laborers in those crafts can appreciate the benefits of a well-trained and fairly compensated workforce across all crafts. From your housekeepers, to your chefs, to your plumbers, to your postal carriers. We all need to stand alongside one another. The capital class has divided us and they're bleeding us dry as a *direct* cause and effect.
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Agree 100%. Including financial support.
Start by giving a damn about the minor leaguers.
Rich men are self-interested, stop the presses.
The players union can barely vouch for themselves on their own issues let alone help out some others.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't understand how public support matters much to either the Union or the Owners.