Minor League: No Strike Impact?

Factual Questions
1

Why weren’t the Minor Leagues of baseball affected by the possibility of a MLB Strike? Ok, Major League does not equal Minor League, but…(most) Minors are owned by the Majors, so shouldn’t the up-and-coming players be equally concerned about their future? …Or, are they hoping for a chance to be MLB scabs?

  • Jinx
2

The strike would have been a strike by the MLBPA, or Major League Baseball Players Association. Clearly from the name, one can assume that minor league players are not members of this union (with some exceptions, I believe players with major league contracts that are in the minors are members of the union, but still…for the most part, just major leaguers), and so, they wouldn’t have gone on strike if the MLBPA did.

In 1994, some minor leaguers DID act as scabs, such as Brian Daubach, who to this day is not in the MLBPA, and as such, is often not included in video games licensed by the MLBPA.

3

The minor leaguers aren’t in the MLBPA because there are numerous legal hurdles to get them representation. Lots of problems with the fact that the minor leaguers don’t stick around long enough to organize. Apparently, they couldn’t organize the entire minor leaguers. Each league would have to be organized separately and hardly anyone stays in one league long enough.

4

The MLBPA has no reason to include minor league players as members, and has never attempted to do so. In theory minor league players could organize their own union, but this seems unlikely. Even with a union, the players’ bargaining position would be laughably weak vis-a-vis their major league counterparts. Most minor leaguers would rather concentrate on making the majors.

5

Only players on a team’s 40 man roster and on a team’s 60-day disabled list are members of the union. All other minor leaguers are not members of the union. Hence a strike would not have had an effect on them (aside from preventing them from playing if their contracts were purchased and they were called up).

IIRC, even players on the 40 man roster but in the minors were not on strike in 1994, 1981 etc.

Zev Steinhardt