WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of Senate Democrats came out swinging against Major League Baseball on Tuesday, asking the league’s commissioner whether it undermined minor league players’ collective bargaining agreement by lobbying for a new law in Florida that exempts those athletes from certain state work requirements.
The MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association April ratified a first-of-its-kind collective bargaining agreement for minor league players this past April. The agreement, approved overwhelmingly the month prior by the association’s minor league membership, was aimed at securing significant pay hikes for minor league athletes and improving player health care benefits, among other things.
At the same time, however, the league was lobbying for broad legislation approved by Florida lawmakers in June, which exempted minor league players from the Sunshine State’s minimum wage and maximum hour requirements. That new law could prove consequential for Florida’s 12 minor league teams and major league clubs that hold spring training events in the state.
Now, a trio of senators led by Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin want to know whether the league’s support for the state wage exemption contradicts its negotiations with the Players Association on the collective bargaining agreement.
In a letter Tuesday to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, Durbin, alongside Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal and Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper, pointed to a provision in the April agreement under which the MLB and the Players Association would jointly support efforts to exempt minor league players from state minimum wage laws.
Any exemptions would only apply if athletes were getting paid consistently under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, the lawmakers wrote. No such joint letter was sent to state government officials in Florida while they were considering June’s legislation, they added.
As written, the Sunshine State's new law will apply regardless of whether players are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
“These efforts by MLB to pass a broad exemption from state wage and hour laws in Florida appear to significantly undermine the agreement MLB entered into with the [Players Association] and put at risk the gains made by minor league players to finally earn a living wage,” the senators told Manfred.
Under the new exemption, the MLB could pay a player in Florida’s Complex League just $7,680 over a 16-week season without violating state minimum wage or work hour laws. That compensation would be less than 40% of a Complex League player’s salary under the collective bargaining agreement, the lawmakers said.
Durbin, Blumenthal and Hickenlooper demanded that Manfred explain why the MLB was lobbying Florida for player wage exemptions while it was still negotiating its agreement with the Players Association, or whether it planned to follow up with a letter requesting that Tallahassee amend its law to provide for a “narrowly tailored exemption” from state wage and hour laws.
The lawmakers also asked whether the MLB would support federal legislation providing for a similarly narrow exemption that would also ensure players are paid based on the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.
“Your answers will help inform our understanding of your commitment to ensure the progress made in the past year continues,” the senators told Manfred.
This isn’t Durbin’s first time pressing the MLB commissioner on the league’s policies towards minor league players. The Illinois Democrat pushed Manfred last year for details on how the league’s exemption from antitrust law affected the minor leagues.
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