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| trade unions of the united states | |
| baseball labor relations | |
| 1965 establishments | |
| major league baseball | |
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The MLBPA was not the first attempt to unionize baseball players. Earlier attempts had included:
The MLBPA was created in 1965 . A year later, the fledgling union hired Marvin Miller from the United Steel Workers Of America to head the organization, serving as Executive Director until 1983 . Miller quickly found success in signing the players and negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement with the team owners in 1968 . During Miller's tenure, base salaries, pension funds, licensing rights and revenues were brought to new levels, laying the groundwork that helped create what is widely considered one of the strongest unions in the country. The strength of the union was immeasurably increased by the creation of the modern free agent system in 1975 . Donald Fehr has served as the Executive Director of the MLBPA since 1986 , shepherding it through the 1994 Baseball Strike and recent issues. While the MLBPA had historically opposed drug testing, claiming it to be a violation of the privacy of players, the union's Executive Board modified its position as it weighed the protecting privacy rights vs. fair competition on the field. As part of its 2002-2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Players Association negotiated survey testing to determine the pervasiveness of steroids within MLB and when the survey testing results showed an incidence above five percent, agreed to penalized testing that began the following season. However, after enormous negative publicity surrounding the alleged or actual involvement of several star players in the BALCO steroid scandal and under mounting pressure from Congress, the players twice re-opened the CBA to negotiate tougher penalties, including the currrent 50-game, 100-game, and lifetime suspensions. |
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