We Don't Care About the CBA...and That's Great

You've probably heard that the owners and players' union have hammered out a new five-year collective bargaining agreement that guarantees labor peace will extend to 26 years since the 1994-95 lockout.

And your eyes probably glazed over at the terms players' union, collective bargaining agreement and labor peace. This is an excellent development in a sport that used to be consumed with those considerations.

A Little History
From the sport's early days to the 1970s, baseball was ruled by owner-overlords protected against anti-trust restrictions by Congress. Players were literally treated like chattel. When the players' union, led by the brilliant Marvin Miller, began asserting its rights in the late 1960s, the battles with owners were over the larger philosophical issue of whether employees had the right to negotiate the terms of their employment.

It took a series of labor battles, both at the bargaining table and in the courts, and an almost unbroken string of union victories, for the balance of power to shift. By the time of the destructive '94-'95 power struggle that cancelled the World Series and delayed the start of the following season, the millionaire players and their intransigent union chief, Donald Fehr, could no longer credibly argue that the fight was about securing rights.

Although the players mostly prevailed in 1995, many fans were disgusted with them. Members of the union increasingly felt the fight was simply over money. At the same time, the old-style autocrats were ceding their ownership to business people more amenable to the new reality of a freer labor market. In the wake of the embarrassing spectacle that pitted millionaires against billionaires and robbed Americans of their national pastime, both sides recognized the need to ditch the dogma and find reasonable compromises.

Today's Reality
Having passed through that painful chapter, players and owners have been thriving. The bones of contention between them are narrow fights over how to divide a rapidly-growing pot of revenues -- the kind that lend themselves to easier compromise.

So two decades later, of course we have labor peace. Why shouldn't we? Viewed through the prism of the 70s and 80s, this is an accomplishment. But viewed through common sense, it is simply tinkering. The 15-day DL is now the 10-day DL. Qualifying offers for free agents will be watered down. The minimum salary will rise. Wake us up when you get to the interesting parts.

I read an analysis that castigated the union for allowing the owners to "win" this round of bargaining. But that is an antiquated view of the negotiations. The players and the owners  understand that their interests generally dovetail and no longer view negotiations as a win-lose proposition. And as long as that's true, it's generally a win for the fans.