A majority of minor league baseball players have voted to unionize, according to the Major League Baseball Players Association.
The MLBPA announced the news on Tuesday and said it was seeking recognition from Major League Baseball to become the collective bargaining representative for minor league players. The push for unionization came just in recent days but has attracted outsize support among players, according to the union.
“Minor league Players have made it unmistakably clear they want the MLBPA to represent them and are ready to begin collective bargaining in order to positively affect the upcoming season,” said MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark.
The MLBPA executive board authorized the organizing campaign for minor league players in advance of the push and voted to support the formation of a new bargaining unit under the umbrella of the union.
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Minor league players have complained about low pay and are hoping that unionization will bring with it better wages and working conditions. Player pay can range from $4,800 at the rookie-ball levels to about $14,000 in Triple-A, according to the Washington Post.
Prior to the news Tuesday, the MLBPA sent out union authorization cards to minor league players in order to gauge interest in unionization. Just 10 days after mailing, the amount of support for organizing was well beyond the threshold of 30% that was needed to proceed with the effort.
An MLBPA news release provided to the Washington Examiner said that the number of minor league players in support of joining the union has now grown far beyond that 30% threshold to a “significant majority.”
The MLBPA is asking the MLB to recognize the union as representing the minor league players, although if the MLB declines to do so, a National Labor Relations Board vote could be held, in which more than 50% of players would need to authorize unionization.
“I definitely feel scared, but this feels like the right thing to do. We’re all jacked up,” Joe Hudson, a catcher at the Triple-A Durham affiliate for the Tampa Bay Rays, told ESPN.
“There’s some bewildered teammates who can’t believe this is actually happening. Everyone is just raving with positivity, moving forward,” he added. “I haven’t come across one guy who’s against this right now. It’s really a snowball effect here.”
Should the minor leagues end up unionizing, it would balloon the MLBPA ranks and result in the association representing more than 5,000 U.S. players.
The new push is part of a broader wave of unionization sweeping the country.
In less than a year, more than 300 Starbucks locations have petitioned the NLRB for union elections since a store in New York became the first to vote for unionization in December. More than 200 of those stores have since voted in favor of unionizing.
Earlier this year, an Amazon warehouse in New York became the first to vote in favor of unionizing, an REI store in New York did the same, and a Trader Joe’s in Massachusetts became the first to file for a union election.
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The labor board put out a news release in March that said that during the first six months of fiscal 2022, union representation petitions filed with the NLRB increased 57%, up to 1,174 from 748 during that same time last year. Unfair labor practice charges have also increased 14% during that same period.
Public support for unions has also been growing. A new Gallup poll found that more than 70% now say they approve of unions, up from just 48% in 2009. The share of approval is now the highest it has been since the 1960s.
