Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Why cannot we sit down together with a board of arbitration, honestly state our difficulties and try to work out a sane method of procedure?” Mrs. Roosevelt is saying that they should have a third party to help work out the disputes in a professional manner. The relation from this quote to major league sports labor disputes is the league and players tend to go to court to try to settle their disputes. However, the leagues have gotten very use to going to court to settle their disputes that they do not try to settle the little disputes personally. Hence, the government intervention should be limited in the major league sports labor disputes.
First, the government’s intervention into major league sports causes problems because the judges do not always label the disputes correctly. Some of the federal laws, that determine what the labor disputes are labeled, are the National Labor Relations Act, the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Act, and the Norris LaGuardia Act. However within the article “Federal Jurisdiction in Sports Labor Disputes” by Michael LeRoy a professor in labor and employment relations, the sports labor disputes are often set under the antitrust act instead of the labor law. Therefore, the judges do not always read the cases right, and in return the judges mislabel the cases under the antitrust. When the court systems label the disputes under the antitrust act, the judges normally dismiss the cases. However, the Clayton Act organizes labor under antitrust laws in a bad manner, which causes more problems than it solves from LeRoy’s article “Federal Jurisdiction in Sports Labor Disputes". Therefore, the Clayton act was not well written because the act caused more problems than it solve...
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Needs Labor Unions to Counteract Power of Big Business,” in Labor Unions, edited by Noel Merino, 99-104. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Greenhaven Press, 2012.
The paper will discuss minicases on ‘The White-Collar Union Organizer’ and ‘The Frustrated Labor Historians’ by Arthur A. Sloane and Fred Witney (2010), to understand the issues unions undergo in the marketplace. There is no predetermined statistical number reported of union memberships in this country. However, “the United Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) excludes almost 2 million U.S wages and salary employees, over half of whom are employed in the public sector, who are represented at their workplaces by a union but are not union members. Not being required to join a union as a condition of continued employment, these employees have for a variety of reasons chosen not to do so. Nor do the BLS estimates include union members who are currently unemployed” (Sloane & Witney, 2010, p.5). Given this important information, the examination of these minicases will provide answers to the problems unions face in organizational settings.
As long has there has been business, Management and Labor have warred against each other for a bigger piece of the pie. Major League Baseball is no different. In the early years of professional baseball the owners controlled the salaries of the players and decided where they could play and what they would be paid. The players were bound to their team by the Reserve Clause that stated, the services of a player will be reserved exclusively for that team for the next season. This resulted in keeping the player’s salaries artificially low because the players were not allowed to offer their services to any other team. The Reserve Clause was in effect for more than One Hundred years of baseball history. It was challenged several times but the owners had won every time, until in 1970 when the St. Louis Cardinals traded outfielder Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. Flood refused to play for the Phillies and sued to become a free-agent. Flood’s case was in court for several years going all the way to the Supreme Court. He was never able to play in the Major League again. While he did not win his case, he laid the groundwork for a later case that involved two pitchers, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally who filed a grievance against the league contending that, because they didn't sign contracts with their previous teams they were free agents. The owners and the Players Association agreed to submit to binding, impartial, arbitration in order to settle this case. On December 23, 1975 the arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of the players and the Reserve Clause was broken, and the era of free agency began in the Major Leagues. In 1976 when free agency began the average player salary was only $52 thousand dollars, but it has increased steadily ever since. By 1990 the average salary for a Major League Baseball player had risen to $589 thousand dollars. This Year baseball will start the 2001 season with an average player salary of more than $2 million, about 40 times higher than the typical wage in 1976 when free agency began.
How could baseball team owners lose $580 million in revenue and baseball players lose $230 million in salary pay in one year? The 1994-95 Major Baseball League 232 day strike lead to millions of dollars lost and millions of fans frustrated by what they say was an act of war. The mediation between Major League Baseball team owners and baseball players was ineffective in delivering a bargaining agreement that would protect the players from being used by the owners for the benefit of their businesses. First, I will provide some background information about the baseball strike followed by cross cultural competence factors and how they affected the event. Next, we will look at the negotiation factors that will include the TIPO model and negotiation strategies. Finally, I will give some highlights and effects of the mediation process. Now, let's look at one of the most famous baseball strikes of all times.
David Brody argues that the rise of contractual or collective bargaining relationships during the post WWII era formalized the relationship between employers and unions, but simultaneously began to put a break on shop floor activism. Explain Brody’s argument and, where relevant, incorporate Weber’s theory of bureaucracy.
Any real baseball fan needs to read a copy of Bob Costas' "Fair Ball." Costas addresses the issues pressing Major League Baseball, its owners, its players, and its fans. Everything that caused the 1994 work stoppage could happen again after next season. However, Costas very thoughtfully lays out a plan primarily for the owners, since they should be able to master what they own.
Throughout the history of the United States of America the continuation of misfortunes for the workforce has aggravated people to their apex, eventually leading to the development of labor unions.
These professors argue that student athletes, under common law and NLRB’s (National Labor Relations Board) employee criterion, do in fact fall under the classification of an employee (Cooper). Under common law, four tests determine if someone is an employee or not. Three of these rules are as follows: “(1) the right of others to control a person's activities; (2) whether that person is compensated; and (3) if that person is economically dependent on that compensation.” According to these guidelines the employer-employee relationship is plainly synonymous to that of coaches and student-athletes. For one, coaches have a significant amount of control over their student-athletes’ activities, two, athletic scholarship money is considered compensation, and third, student-athletes are highly dependent on these scholarships for their food, living, and education. Even after realizing that a student-athlete falls under what the law defines as an employee, we can agree that any D1 student-athlete who works upwards of 40 hours a week to perform at a high level of competition for the universities benefit is essentially working a full time job on top of school work
Imagine a business that brings in $60 million each year ,and the people fueling that industry receive none of the revenue(Wieberg). These same people work 40 hours in their sport every week, these “people” are college athletes. The NCAA, the governing body for major college sports, is the industry doing this to college athletes(Edelman). This is an issue of exploitation and control by large institutions over primarily poor people, the NCAA is guiding them in directions to make money for everybody while doing everything possible to keep the players out of the money. College Athletes deserve profit because they bring in large revenue into their program, the NCAA, and they invest tons of time into their sport.
Professional sports were beginning to be organized in the 1850s. At this point, their salaries, although they were still higher than the average person’s, were not too outrageous. In the 1880s and 90s, baseball players in particular were making on average about $1,750 annually. Even though this was three times the salary of an industrial worker of the time, they were not happy with this amount of money and felt they should be earning more (Baseball n.d.). In the 1970s, the worlds of professional sports took a drastic turn. According to an article by J.L. Carnagie, “Two words described sports in the 1970s: big business. Owners and athletes in major professional team sports knew there was money to be made in their games, and they went after it.” (Carnagie, n.d.) Athletes, especially, realized how competitive teams were becoming, and they were well aware that talent was in high demand. In the beginning of 1980s, the best athletes were demanding even more money; and the majority of the time, they got what they wanted. By end of the 1980s, many athletes were making over a million dollars (Carnagie, n.d.) These increasing salaries were very ironic because when professional sports began they were intended to be a showcase of players’ talent and athletic ability. Professional sports leagues were also supposed to be similar to the Olympics in that they would be free of politics and influence of society. However, by the 80s, they had become all about the star athletes and how much money they could make. By this point, professional sports had evolved into an industry that was focused on entertainment and money, rather than the sports actually being played (Carnagie, n.d.).
Beginning in the late 1700’s and growing rapidly even today, labor unions form the backbone for the American workforce and continue to fight for the common interests of workers around the country. As we look at the history of these unions, we see powerful individuals such as Terrence Powderly, Samuel Gompers, and Eugene Debs rise up as leaders in a newfound movement that protected the rights of the common worker and ensured better wages, more reasonable hours, and safer working conditions for those people (History). The rise of these labor unions also warranted new legislation that would protect against child labor in factories and give health benefits to workers who were either retired or injured, but everyone was not on board with the idea of foundations working to protect the interests of the common worker. Conflict with their industries lead to many strikes across the country in the coal, steel, and railroad industries, and several of these would ultimately end up leading to bloodshed. However, the existence of labor unions in the United States and their influence on their respective industries still resonates today, and many of our modern ideals that we have today carry over from what these labor unions fought for during through the Industrial Revolution.
Zimbalist, Andrew S. Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism And Conflict In Big-Time College Sports. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Throughout American history, labor unions have served to facilitate mediation between workers and employers. Workers seek to negotiate with employers for more control over their labor and its fruits. “A labor union can best be defined as an organization that exists for the purpose of representing its members to their employers regarding wages and terms and conditions of employment” (Hunter). Labor unions’ principal objectives are to increase wages, shorten work days, achieve greater benefits, and improve working conditions. Despite these goals, the early years of union formation were characterized by difficulties (Hunter).
Dispute resolution follows career and post career planning on the list of functions. Dispute resolution is somewhat self-explanatory. It includes the agent resolving disputes with the league, team, teammates, fans, referees or umpires, the media, and endorsement companies. “Renowned baseball agent Dennis Gilbert likens the role of the agent to a shield, stating that it is the agent’s task to shield the athlete from the headaches that go along with resolving disputes” (Schwarz, 1996). This so called “shield” allows players to concentrate completely on their sport, without outside distractions.
Domhoff discusses the prevalence of labor unions in the New Deal era. In fact, by 1945, with the help of the liberal-labor alliances, union membership had increased five-fold to fifteen million in that past decade (pg. 172). However, after 1945, the liberal-labor alliances never saw a victory against corporate conservatives. Because of the corporate world’s domination of policy implementation, politicians rules time and again against labor unions because it works in corporate America’s favor. Labor unions serve as many working class Americans’ avenue into the political sphere; denying them a right to unionize is not only a fundamental violation of free speech but also morally and ethically wrong. Overall, Domhoff’s critique of wealthy politicians (primarily Republicans) is merited considering he argues empirically with statistics supporting extremely skewed voting trends against unions. Additionally, Domhoff’s argument exudes sympathy toward those less fortunate; I share Domhoff’s sentiment that is imperative we promote equality amongst classes, one way in which we should do so is through advocacy of labor
An arbitrator’s function is usually to interpret the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, not to apply his or her standards of what is right in a given situation. The courts have sought to compel labour and management to a peaceful resolution of grievances through arbitration. The Supreme Court has given support to the arbitration process in a series of decisions, and judicial deferral to arbitration has become a basic tenet of national labour policy. Bibliography Byars, L. L. (1997). The.