When President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Judge David Souter on the Supreme Court you can bet that Major League Baseball owners knew what kind of judge she was. Back in 1995, in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Judge Sotomayor ended the Major League Baseball strike that began on Aug. 12, 1994.
In 1995, Judge Sotomayor effectively ended the strike by upholding the National Labor Relations Board’s unfair labor practices complaint against the owners.
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The players took their complaints to President Bill Clinton’s appointed National Labor Relations Board, a panel which proved to be friendlier to the players’ union than the panels of the previous two administrations. On March 27, the board sided with the players that the owners were involved in unfair labor practices.
At the time, the Major League Baseball Players Association said if a judge supported the NLRB’s finding, they would go back to work — and by April 2, the players were in spring training. With that, Major League Baseball was back in business.
The 1994-95 strike was the last time Major League owners and the players failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement and had a work stoppage. Judge Sotomayor restored Major League Baseball’s old collective bargaining agreement with her ruling. She ordered the owners to restore free-agent bidding, salary arbitration and the anti-collusion provisions of baseball’s expired collective bargaining agreement.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on washingtonexaminer.com.
