Public Employee Press

3rd in a series on labor history
Baseball union leader Marvin Miller:
Locked out by “Hall of Shame”

By JANE LaTOUR

In the old days of baseball, the pros were working-class. Even stars like Joe DiMaggio were paid little compared with their counterparts today. Under the infamous “reserve clause” they were bought and sold, but they had no right to sell their services to the highest bidder.

When Carl Furillo, the great batting champion of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was injured he was “released”— fired by management for a disability he got doing his job. He went to court, but lost. Sportswriter Roger Kahn dubbed Furillo “the hard hat who sued baseball” as he went to work installing elevators at the World Trade Center.

In 1966, the Major League Baseball Players Association formed. As executive director, the players hired Marvin Miller, a top negotiator from the then-powerful Steelworkers’ union. He had to convince the workers — the baseball players — that they needed a real union, infuse them with the class consciousness of the steelworkers, and show them the union could deliver.

Unity and victories
It was a tough battle. The owners fought desperately to keep their management rights. But the players united into one of the country’s most successful unions. Miller wrote about those struggles in his paperback book, “A Whole Different Ball Game: The Inside Story of the Baseball Revolution,” which is in the DC 37 library.

Fast forward. Today, Major League Baseball players have rights under a union contract, the highest average pay in sports and mega-millions for some, but as in many unions, class and union consciousness has shriveled. The sacrifices and the giant gains made by the pioneers are forgotten or taken for granted.

But on Dec. 3, 2007, something happened to make us remember. A committee stacked with a pro-management majority — the types Miller fought and beat in arbitration and bargaining sessions that altered the history of the game — elected former Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to the Hall of Fame. But they denied the same honor to Marvin Miller.

“Miller had a bigger impact on baseball than any commissioner, owner or player in the past 40 years,” wrote former Commissioner Fay Vincent. “Part of his legacy is a powerful, well-run union. The more important part is the present legal and financial structure of the sport, including free agency, salary arbitration and enormous pension and benefit programs for the players, all due largely to his efforts.” Vincent called Miller’s rejection “an act of ignorance and bias.” He pointed out that while Kuhn had fought change, Miller and the union fought and defeated evil.

Baseball is big business. Thanks to Miller, the corporate fat cats who own the teams now pay players something close to their value. This is a principle all trade unionists should celebrate, even as we work to extend the same right to others.