Players expected to lose minimum wage protection
House approved spending bill Thurs.
Minor league baseball players who make as little as $5,500 a season would be stripped of the protection of federal minimum wage laws under a provision in government spending legislation expected to be approved by Congress this week.
The “Save America’s Pastime Act” is included on page 1,967 of the $1.3 trillion spending bill and appears to pre-empt a lawsuit filed four years ago in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by three players alleging Major League Baseball and its teams violate the Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime requirements for a work week they estimated at 50 to 60 hours.
The provision in the legislation would exempt “any employee employed to play baseball who is compensated pursuant to a contract that provides for a weekly salary for services performed during the league’s championship season (but not spring training or the offseason) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage … for a workweek of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball related activities.”
The House approved the spending bill Thursday and the legislation appears likely to be approved by the Senate and signed by President Donald Trump.
“Instead of going through the regular committee process where it has a hearing, all of this was done in secret and a in a very rushed manner,” Garrett Broshuis, the lawyer for the players, said Thursday. “It’s emblematic of how things are getting done in Washington these days.”
Major League Baseball spent $1.32 million on lobbying expenses in both 2016 and 2017, up from $330,000 in 2015, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. MLB paid $400,000 each of those years to an outside firm, the Duberstein Group, which reported lobbying the House and Senate on the issue, as did MLB’s in-house lobbyist.
Only major league players are unionized, which sets minimum salaries for players on 40-man rosters: $545,000 for those in the major leagues this season, $88,900 for 40-man roster players in the minors signing at least their second big league contract and $44,500 for 40-man roster players in the minors signing their first big league contract.
While early selections in the annual draft of players residing in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, and top amateurs from the rest of the world can command signing bonuses as high as about $8 million under the current rules, monthly salaries for most players on minor league rosters are low: $1,100 at rookie ball and Class A, $1,500 at DoubleA and $2,150 at Triple-A. Players also receive a $25 per diem on the road and dinner at the ballpark following games.
“We stand shoulder to shoulder with the minor league players and the labor community in opposing this legislation,” Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said in an email.