> So what is the story on ballplayers' unions, anyway? They are taken as a
> fact of life by most sports fans, it seems, and when mentioned in the news
> don't merit the kinds of biased comments that, say, a UNITE! union would.
I'
> ve known
> some fairly conservative people who have negative opinions of unions - but
> but baseball unions are exempted.
Dunno about ballplayers' unions in general, but a local (Wisconsin) figure, Ed Garvey, a lawyer who headed the NFLPA (Nat'l Football League Players Assoc.) caught a certain amount of flack over it when he ran for governor in 1998. Garvey won collective bargaining rights for US football players, and led the union through a bitter strike in, I think, 1987. Garvey is a good, progressive guy. I volunteered in his 1998 campaign, but we were trounced by the egregious Tommy Thompson, now Dubya's Sect'y of HHS. We did "better than expected," though--almost cracked 40%.
What you'd hear when working the phones was, "Oh, Garvey, he's the guy who wrecked professional football." People saw the NFL players as a pampered elite who make shitloads of money. What do THEY need a union for? Never mind the fact that before they had a union they were treated horribly, and that the average NFL player's career lasts five years if he's lucky, and that most of them are physical wrecks for the rest of their lives once they retire from the game.
It looks like they're trying to portray the west coast longshoremen in the same light. I've seen some stuff in the media about their "high salaries."
Jacob Conrad