OC Register: MLB looks to federal mediator to help end lockout

[AngelsWin.com]

By RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball asked a federal mediator to intervene in stalled labor negotiations that likely will put off the start of spring training.

On the 64th day of a lockout, MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem asked Thursday for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to enter the dispute.

The players’ association must agree for the conciliation service to enter talks. The union declined to comment, and its lawyers were expected to consult with players.

There was little movement in the last negotiating session on Tuesday, leaving almost no hope spring training workouts will start as scheduled on Feb. 16. Baseball’s ninth work stoppage, its first since 1995, will soon threaten Opening Day on March 31.

Players made a new proposal with small changes Tuesday during the first negotiating session in a week, and management has not responded.

The federal mediation service entered the 1981 talks, and mediator Kenneth Moffett helped reach a deal that ended a midseason strike after 50 days, a stoppage that resulted in 713 canceled games.

“It is done in a fishbowl,” Moffett told The Associated Press in 1994. “Every statement, every press release – anything – is for public consumption. In most negotiations, you don’t hear a peep until there’s a settlement.”

Moffett succeeded Marvin Miller as executive director of the players’ association in 1983 but was fired after 10½ months. Moffett died last December at age 90.

After another strike began on Aug. 12, 1994, and led to the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years, President Bill Clinton picked former Labor Secretary W. J. Usery to mediate the dispute.

While Usery cajoled the sides into resuming talks, neither party found his presence productive in what has become a highly technical labor contract whose practices and effects outsiders have difficulty comprehending.

After Usery brought both sides to the White House and made suggestions for a settlement, the intransigent stances of both sides left Clinton “exasperated,” White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.

The 1994-95 strike ended on April 2, two days after the National Labor Relations Board obtained an injunction from U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor to restore the terms and conditions of the expired contract. A new deal was not reached until March 1997, long after Usery had departed the talks.

Gregory Goldstein was appointed as acting director of the FMCS on Dec. 22 by President Joe Biden. Javier Ramirez, the FMCS executive manager of the division of agency initiatives, was nominated by Biden to be director last June 9 but has not been confirmed by the Senate.

The FMCS assisted in talks during the 2011 NFL lockout and the 2011 NBA lockout, the 2012-13 NHL lockout, the 2015 Major League Soccer negotiations with its players and 2014 MLS negotiations with on-field officials.

View the full article

[AngelsLakersFan]

Wow, I had no idea that the 1994 labor dispute was not officially settled until 1997.

[Mark68]

Season over.

 

 

 

Seriously. It's not looking good. 

[failos]

Not looking too great. This is the equivalent of a child using screaming and crying as a last resort to get what they want.

[Inside Pitch]

MLBPA just told MLB to shove it.   

MLB locks the players out, waits 6 weeks to engage, then pretends they're upset about the pace of negotiations.

You can't even call it acting in bad faith anymore as that would be an upgrade.

[Blarg]

Looking forward to Donnelly coming out of retirement to play on the MLB scab team. 

Again.

[Jason]

5 hours ago, Blarg said:

Looking forward to Donnelly coming out of retirement to play on the MLB scab team. 

Again.

He’s bringing Brandon Wood with him 

[Docwaukee]

I'll open my post with a point that I think both sides are a bunch of greedy dicks.  

With that said, it's likely that every single owner has more money than anyone could possibly dream of.   While the avg mlb salary is just over 4mil.  BUT, the median salary is just over a mil.  Which means that the vast majority of major leaguers make a tremendous wage but they likely don't have the accumulated wealth anywhere close to the owners.  

So if this is a game of chicken...

Now here's a little conspiracy theory to go along with why the owners are acting as they are.  MLB just got hit with a lawsuit regarding their anti-trust designation.  My guess would be that the mlbpa is supportive of this lawsuit and that behind the scenes the owners are not happy about it.  Of course they can't be directly involved, but I could see how there would be shenanigans where the players would certainly help support weakening the owners power.  

Or and maybe and, the players have approached this upcoming process by clearly indicating that they were ready to bring pitchforks and torches and bats and loaded guns as a starting point.  

So would it make sense for a bunch of billionaires to come into this with hat in hand and work toward everyone getting along?  Hell no.  These guys are going to bring their bigger bats and guns and pitchforks.  

The players are this massive army full of piss and vitriol ready to storm the castle.  So the owners are like alright.  Try to get in.  Otherwise, we're just gonna sit behind our wall and see who runs out of supplies first.  

Or the parent who makes a parental decision while their kid goosesteps around the house.  Whether justified or not, they're waiting out the tantrum phase

[Blarg]

The players don't have the same money as the owners because they fucking play baseball. The owners didn't become wealthy owning a team, they applied their wealth from their businesses they built, risking capital and potential bankruptcy if they failed to buy a team, something that the players never had to. 

So, no, I don't give a fuck that some muscle heads that probably can't sort nails at the home depot, but can make 3,000 times that yearly wage playing sports, are not finding themselves at the billionaire's table. They don't belong there, they haven't earned it. 

So some simple come to Jesus moment needs to take place and that the wage structure needs to reset to a reasonable level to what the talents are worth to match the product demands and not some false economy based on a fanbase that has dwindled over the years. 

You want to raise the floor then lower the ceiling. You want earlier free agency to score big contracts then give up guaranteed money like football where a drop off in performance can cancel your contract at anytime. No more Pujols dragging the Angels through 7 years of mediocre performance for elite pay or Hamilton cokeing out and then refusing to report.

Earn it or burn it. But don't whine about how tough it is to live on a 3% of the population rather than the 1% pay structure. 

[Stradling]

8 hours ago, Blarg said:

The players don't have the same money as the owners because they fucking play baseball. The owners didn't become wealthy owning a team, they applied their wealth from their businesses they built, risking capital and potential bankruptcy if they failed to buy a team, something that the players never had to. 

So, no, I don't give a fuck that some muscle heads that probably can't sort nails at the home depot, but can make 3,000 times that yearly wage playing sports, are not finding themselves at the billionaire's table. They don't belong there, they haven't earned it. 

So some simple come to Jesus moment needs to take place and that the wage structure needs to reset to a reasonable level to what the talents are worth to match the product demands and not some false economy based on a fanbase that has dwindled over the years. 

You want to raise the floor then lower the ceiling. You want earlier free agency to score big contracts then give up guaranteed money like football where a drop off in performance can cancel your contract at anytime. No more Pujols dragging the Angels through 7 years of mediocre performance for elite pay or Hamilton cokeing out and then refusing to report.

Earn it or burn it. But don't whine about how tough it is to live on a 3% of the population rather than the 1% pay structure. 

You forgot that the Home Depot guy that makes 1/3000 hasn’t earned a seat at the millionaire table, so they can go back to sorting their nails.  While I agree it feels like the fan base of baseball has dwindled I’m not sure the economics support that.  MLB is still getting record breaking money from networks, that doesn’t happen if those networks can’t justify it. 

[Docwaukee]

46 minutes ago, Stradling said:

You forgot that the Home Depot guy that makes 1/3000 hasn’t earned a seat at the millionaire table, so they can go back to sorting their nails.  While I agree it feels like the fan base of baseball has dwindled I’m not sure the economics support that.  MLB is still getting record breaking money from networks, that doesn’t happen if those networks can’t justify it. 

and networks effectively justify it by selling ad space for a certain amount.  And mlb.com have been appropriately monetized.  That's like pure cash.    

[Stradling]

Yep and profits have gone through the roof in mlb because of television.  Labor has stayed the same, thus taking a smaller percentage  of revenue. But it’s players greed that causes ticket prices to go up.  Nonsense. 

[Dtwncbad]

The word “greed” in these kinds of situations is almost always unproductive and distracting.

Everyone wants to end up with as much compensation as they can.

In this CBA negotiation, I would say either everyone is greedy or nobody is greedy.

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

15 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I'll open my post with a point that I think both sides are a bunch of greedy dicks.  

With that said, it's likely that every single owner has more money than anyone could possibly dream of.   While the avg mlb salary is just over 4mil.  BUT, the median salary is just over a mil.  Which means that the vast majority of major leaguers make a tremendous wage but they likely don't have the accumulated wealth anywhere close to the owners.  

So if this is a game of chicken...

Now here's a little conspiracy theory to go along with why the owners are acting as they are.  MLB just got hit with a lawsuit regarding their anti-trust designation.  My guess would be that the mlbpa is supportive of this lawsuit and that behind the scenes the owners are not happy about it.  Of course they can't be directly involved, but I could see how there would be shenanigans where the players would certainly help support weakening the owners power.  

Or and maybe and, the players have approached this upcoming process by clearly indicating that they were ready to bring pitchforks and torches and bats and loaded guns as a starting point.  

So would it make sense for a bunch of billionaires to come into this with hat in hand and work toward everyone getting along?  Hell no.  These guys are going to bring their bigger bats and guns and pitchforks.  

The players are this massive army full of piss and vitriol ready to storm the castle.  So the owners are like alright.  Try to get in.  Otherwise, we're just gonna sit behind our wall and see who runs out of supplies first.  

Or the parent who makes a parental decision while their kid goosesteps around the house.  Whether justified or not, they're waiting out the tantrum phase

I think it's way simpler than that.

You have owners who have seen record profits that were not passed on to players leading in to COVID, which have been followed by a couple years of significant revenue decline that were passed on to players. We are now entering a period of uncertainty where both parties are trying to get back what they lost.

The owners see the years of record profits as a fortuitous blip on the radar undone by covid and not to be seen again, while the players finally woke up and realized that they never even bothered to ask for a slice of the pie during the good times.

Additionally we can understand the playbook from the owners perspective. The players are paid, essentially, on a per game rate. As we saw from the fan-less 2020 season, ownership makes comparatively little from gate receipts. They needed only 60 games to lock in their television deals, and an expanded post-season because the league is paid per game there. So there is little motivation, beyond damage to the brand, for the owners to accept a deal less than the one they want before July. Meanwhile, if it does drag out into the season the players will be motivated to extend the work stoppage as close to that deadline as they can.

[AngelsLakersFan]

13 hours ago, Blarg said:

The players don't have the same money as the owners because they fucking play baseball. The owners didn't become wealthy owning a team, they applied their wealth from their businesses they built, risking capital and potential bankruptcy if they failed to buy a team, something that the players never had to. 

So, no, I don't give a fuck that some muscle heads that probably can't sort nails at the home depot, but can make 3,000 times that yearly wage playing sports, are not finding themselves at the billionaire's table. They don't belong there, they haven't earned it. 

So some simple come to Jesus moment needs to take place and that the wage structure needs to reset to a reasonable level to what the talents are worth to match the product demands and not some false economy based on a fanbase that has dwindled over the years. 

You want to raise the floor then lower the ceiling. You want earlier free agency to score big contracts then give up guaranteed money like football where a drop off in performance can cancel your contract at anytime. No more Pujols dragging the Angels through 7 years of mediocre performance for elite pay or Hamilton cokeing out and then refusing to report.

Earn it or burn it. But don't whine about how tough it is to live on a 3% of the population rather than the 1% pay structure. 

What's the difference between playing baseball and censoring bikini shots for television, aside from the baseball players being significantly more talented and working harder?

I'm sure you'd be pissed if you had to accept limitations on your ability to sell your skills to an employer, especially when those limitations negatively impacted your earnings. Heck you make more money than a lot of these guys too.

[Taylor]

17 hours ago, Blarg said:

The players don't have the same money as the owners because they fucking play baseball. The owners didn't become wealthy owning a team, they applied their wealth from their businesses they built, risking capital and potential bankruptcy if they failed to buy a team, something that the players never had to. 

So, no, I don't give a fuck that some muscle heads that probably can't sort nails at the home depot, but can make 3,000 times that yearly wage playing sports, are not finding themselves at the billionaire's table. They don't belong there, they haven't earned it. 

So some simple come to Jesus moment needs to take place and that the wage structure needs to reset to a reasonable level to what the talents are worth to match the product demands and not some false economy based on a fanbase that has dwindled over the years. 

You want to raise the floor then lower the ceiling. You want earlier free agency to score big contracts then give up guaranteed money like football where a drop off in performance can cancel your contract at anytime. No more Pujols dragging the Angels through 7 years of mediocre performance for elite pay or Hamilton cokeing out and then refusing to report.

Earn it or burn it. But don't whine about how tough it is to live on a 3% of the population rather than the 1% pay structure. 

Keep at it, Blarg. One of these days a billionaire will give you an attaboy.

[Lou]

Attaboy, Blarg.

[Taylor]

2 minutes ago, Lou said:

Attaboy, Blarg.

[Docwaukee]

4 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I think it's way simpler than that.

You have owners who have seen record profits that were not passed on to players leading in to COVID, which have been followed by a couple years of significant revenue decline that were passed on to players. We are now entering a period of uncertainty where both parties are trying to get back what they lost.

The owners see the years of record profits as a fortuitous blip on the radar undone by covid and not to be seen again, while the players finally woke up and realized that they never even bothered to ask for a slice of the pie during the good times.

Additionally we can understand the playbook from the owners perspective. The players are paid, essentially, on a per game rate. As we saw from the fan-less 2020 season, ownership makes comparatively little from gate receipts. They needed only 60 games to lock in their television deals, and an expanded post-season because the league is paid per game there. So there is little motivation, beyond damage to the brand, for the owners to accept a deal less than the one they want before July. Meanwhile, if it does drag out into the season the players will be motivated to extend the work stoppage as close to that deadline as they can.

If the players and the MLBPA had been doing their job over the last several agreements then it wouldn't have gotten to this.  

[tdawg87]

17 hours ago, Blarg said:

The players don't have the same money as the owners because they fucking play baseball. The owners didn't become wealthy owning a team, they applied their wealth from their businesses they built, risking capital and potential bankruptcy if they failed to buy a team, something that the players never had to. 

So, no, I don't give a fuck that some muscle heads that probably can't sort nails at the home depot, but can make 3,000 times that yearly wage playing sports, are not finding themselves at the billionaire's table. They don't belong there, they haven't earned it. 

So some simple come to Jesus moment needs to take place and that the wage structure needs to reset to a reasonable level to what the talents are worth to match the product demands and not some false economy based on a fanbase that has dwindled over the years. 

You want to raise the floor then lower the ceiling. You want earlier free agency to score big contracts then give up guaranteed money like football where a drop off in performance can cancel your contract at anytime. No more Pujols dragging the Angels through 7 years of mediocre performance for elite pay or Hamilton cokeing out and then refusing to report.

Earn it or burn it. But don't whine about how tough it is to live on a 3% of the population rather than the 1% pay structure. 

This is the most boomer post in history.

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 minute ago, Dochalo said:

If the players and the MLBPA had been doing their job over the last several agreements then it wouldn't have gotten to this.  

They polled the players prior to the last CBA and the number one ask was for massaging recliners in the clubhouse. What more could they do?!

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

This is the most boomer post in history.

It reads more like the guy who was pushed around by jocks in high school and now he thinks he's better than them.

[jsnpritchett]

 

 

[Taylor]

You guys are very disrespectful to the owners. They are being victimized by the MLBPA.

[Lou]

3 minutes ago, Taylor said:

You guys are very disrespectful to the owners. They are being victimized by the MLBPA.

Only one side is claiming to be the victims.