Major League Baseball Players Association (union) is an association of expert major league baseball players. The association was founded in the 1953. In 1966, Marvin Miller from united steel workers association was hired to head the organization. He served as an executive Director until 1953. In 1977, Donald Fehr joined the MLBPA.
In 1985, he was named an executive director. He led the association through the Major League Baseball strike in 1994. He then stepped down in 2009. The Major League Baseball Association is a communal negotiating representative for major league baseball’s players. The association consists of 1,200 players (“Encyclopedia Britannica Online” par.1).
MLB constitutes of major experts sports league of Canada and United States. It consists of 30 teams, 1 in Canada and 29 in the United States. MLB manages the global baseball classics. It has the fifth highest average attendance among NLF, AFL, Bundeslinga and premier league sports. It is governed by Major League Baseball Association constitution (Okrent, Lewin & Nemec 33).
Role of Major League Baseball Players Association
The Major Baseball League Association has various roles in the modern world. One of it roles is to protect the rights of the players. It negotiates employment contracts in a collective order to attain a collective negotiating agreement. It ensures transparency of the employment of its players and staff in the association, as well as protecting their rights.
The association also negotiates the salaries of it player. The association also has a role in the modern world of negotiating the salaries of its players. It ensures that the players are given the right pay. It also negotiates the salary increment of its players. This justify why the baseball players have the highest salaries among the four sport leagues.
The association has a role in arbitrating grievances. Grievance arbitration is adjudicative procedure through which disagreements arising out of operation and application of a collective agreement are cracked. The association solves the agreement that arise during the signing of collective agreement to ensure they attain a collective agreement.
In addition, the union also ensures the field safety of the players. It ensures that the field in which they play in is safe for the players. It also caters for their health when playing for example the field ambulances and the field first Aid.
It also controls the license for major baseball players as well as distributing licensing revenues. Major league Baseball Players Association confirms the player agents (Johnson et al 10).
Major league baseball strike
This association had five strikes. The 1985 baseball strike which lasted only for two days did not cause work slowdown since the 25 games scheduled for those days were later made up. The major league baseball strikes took place in 1972, 1981, 1994 and 1995. This strikes caused a major work slowdown.
The 1981 was as a result of the owners striving hard to win back the civil liberties over the players. The 1972 strike occurred on 1st April to 13th April. The strike that was the worst work slowdown was the strike of 1994-1995 (Okrent, Lewine & Nemec 33).
Between 1994 and 1995, the major league baseball strike was the eighth work slowdown in the history of baseball. It was the fourth in season work slowdown in 22 years. The strike lasted from 12th August 1994 to 2nd August 1995. The strike led the termination of 948 and 931 games. This strike was caused by a number of reasons.
The major baseball players association felt that the salary cap lowered their salary growth. In addition, the players being offered a free agency after four years seemed a poor compromise to them. The main reason for this strike was in response to the worsening economic situation in baseball. The cancelling of World Series in 1994 was the first in history after 1904. Major League Baseball the first experts sports to lose its whole postseason due to labor dispute (Jennings 19).
Conclusion
The major league baseball association is a union that is of great help to the baseball players. It ensures that the needs of the baseball players are met accordingly. The 1994-1995 strike greatly slowed down the work of the union. This strike ought to be avoided in future to ensure the success of the baseball players. The players do a great job in the field.
They ought to be paid well enough. Motivating the players is also necessary. This will show some appreciation to them. Any grievances that arise in the baseball leagues should also be taken into serious consideration. They ought to be solved in the best interest of the players.
The association should ensure that there are adequate platforms set up to address players’ problems. Baseball players face a lot of risks in the field. The baseball association should ensure that all players have medical covers. In addition to this, the baseball association should ensure that the players’ payments are done in good time.
There are many baseball players aspiring to join the major league. The association should invest in searching for these untapped talents. This could be done by holding tournaments in various cities aimed at attracting the young players who haven’t found clubs or sponsors.
Works Cited
“Encyclopedia Britannica Online.” Major League Baseball Players Association. Web.
Jennings, Kenneth. Ball and strikes: the money game in professional baseball. Praeger publishers, 1990. Print.
Johnson, Richard, Stout, Glenn, Johnson. Dick Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Print.
Okrent, Daniel, Harris Lewine, David Nemec. The Ultimate Baseball Book. Houghton Mifflin Books publishers, 2000. Print.