Major League Baseball said it’s settling a complaint by minor league players about “poverty” wages, avoiding a trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake that could have tarnished the league’s reputation.
Lawyers for both sides in the long-running litigation said in a court filing Tuesday that they’ve reached a tentative settlement but need until July 11 to submit a request for approval of the deal. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed in the filing.
The judge overseeing the case agreed to call off the jury trial that was set for June 1 in San Francisco.
“The billionaire MLB owners knew they were going to lose this lawsuit and perhaps even worse, or equally bad, they were going to lose in the court of public opinion,” said Peter Dreier, a co-author of books “Baseball Rebels” and “Major League Rebels” that examine social and labor-related issues in baseball.
“Their backs were against the wall and this settlement made sense,” said Dreier, who’s also a politics professor at Occidental College.
A spokesperson for MLB didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys representing the minor league players declined to comment on deal terms until a request for court approval is filed.
The average annual salary of MLB players is more than $4 million, and the minimum pay is $700,000 a year, according to a study of baseball contracts by the Associated Press. In contrast, minor league players make from $4,800 to $15,400 a year, a group called Advocates for Minor Leaguers says.
Originally filed in 2014, the class-action case includes claims against the MLB and 22 major league ballclubs over alleged violations of state and federal wage laws. Minor league wages are often lower than the minimum rates required by law, and players regularly work seven days a week without pay during spring training, the suit claimed.
The minor leaguers last month won rulings recognizing that they are employees and allowing the bulk of their claims to proceed. A judge also concluded MLB owes $1.9 million to minor league players for violating California’s wage statement requirements.
The case is Senne v. Office of Commissioner of Baseball, 14-cv-00608, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
Topics Lawsuits
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