There seems to be some disagreement in the MLBPA as to who should fill the role of chief negotiator.
During an online meeting Monday, players pushed for union executive director Tony Clark to remove deputy executive director Bruce Meyer, who led talks for the 2022 collective bargaining agreement.
Some in the group pushing for change want to replace Meyer with Harry Marino, who helped minor leaguers organize and join the players’ association in late 2022. Marino was hired for the union staff in September 2022, helped reach the first minor league labor contract with Major League Baseball, then left last July.
“The players who sought me out want a union that represents the will of the majority,” Marino said in a statement. “Scott Boras is rich because he makes — or used to make — the richest players in the game richer.”
Marino added that it was “alarming” for Boras to be defending Clark and Meyer.
Chron.com
This is going to be a fascinating battle. One reason the MLBPA was so successful is that they concentrated on the framework for salaries, not the salaries themselves. They concentrated on freeing players to make as much money as possible without destroying the meritocracy that makes some players fabulously wealthy, and others just a bit wealthy.
Marino might be a more traditional union organizer. Maybe he wants union control of salaries, distributing money more evenly over all the players in MLB. That might make the rank and file happy, and it might even make the owners happy, but I suspect it’s the wrong way to go.
My hope is that Marino wants free agency at a younger age or fewer years of service. If that’s true, he is the man for the job.
I was quite surprised when the minor league unionization went very easily and quickly. Whether you like Rob Manfred or not, he is a very good labor negotiator with a proven track record. Maybe he and his crew saw that the people leading the minor league charge were very different that those leading the MLBPA, and somehow that might lead to a situation like this, where the union becomes a bit weaker through dissension. We shall see.