Minor-leaguers lose wage protection in signed bill
Minor-league baseball players who make as little as US$5,500 a season were stripped of the protection of federal minimum wage laws under a provision in government spending legislation signed Friday.
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 exempts “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 off-season) at a rate that is not less than a weekly salary equal to the minimum wage for a work week of 40 hours, irrespective of the number of hours the employee devotes to baseball related activities.”
The House approved the spending bill Thursday, the Senate followed Friday and President Donald Trump signed it in the afternoon.
“Instead of going through the regular committee process where it has a hearing, all of this was done in secret and 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, where the people with a lot of money are able to flex their political muscle and make a lot of contributions and get things done in secret that benefit only them.”
Only major-league players are unionized, and their collective bargaining agreement sets minimum salaries for players on 40man 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. Teams have spent just under $289 million on signing bonuses for last year’s amateur draft picks and about $150 million on international amateurs in the signing period that started July 2. MLB calculates the average monthly salaries last year at $10,000 in Triple-A, $3,000 in Double-A, $1,600 at upper-level Class A and $1,300 at lower-level A-ball.
“We stand shoulder to shoulder with the minor league players and the labour community in opposing this legislation,” Tony Clark, head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said in an email.
The lawsuit has been certified as a class action for minor leaguers who played in a California league, instructional league or extended spring training since February 2011, but MLB has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that decision, which has delayed the case from going to trial.
MLB had no comment on the legislation, spokesman Michael Teevan said.