O ver the past 40 years-- the period of increasing economic inequality that former Slate writer Timothy Noah called "The Great Aberration"-- American's earnings have actually not expanded whatsoever, in dollars when adjusted for inflation.
However, Major League Baseball player earnings have actually increased twenty fold in real bucks: the ordinary major-league salary in 2012 was $3,213,479. The income disparity between ballplayers and their fans closely resembles the rising discrepancy between CEO’s and their employees, which grew during the same period from about 25-to-1 to 380-to-1.
Top teams ($ in millions)
- New York Yankees... 232,998,561
- Los Angeles Dodgers... 223,867,196
- Philadelphia Phillies... 170,353,189
- Boston Red Sox.. 152,028,000
- Detroit Tigers 145,989,500
Trying to contrast baseball players to a Fortune 500 CEO gets wrong the mechanics of baseball's labor market. Players aren't CEO’s – they don't regulate the business side or the deals or the perks or the effort put forth by Chief Executives in their situation. They are simply laborers. The people on whose backs the business's revenues are developed. There may be some argument when comparing the increase in ballplayer salaries to the lack of growth in earnings for the typical American worker, but this is not the case given players and laborers are eventually on exactly the same side of the formula.
Provided that the most basic piece of McClelland's argument is based upon a mistaken comparison, it's some surprise that he completely mishandles the overall argument he tries to make.
The labor plans of the mid-20th century depressed the price of knowledgeable labor while pumping up the rate of unskilled labor. On the flip side of the labor market, union membership made up 35 percent of private-sector laborers and subsequently it could be argued that union leaders had their very own political arm in the Democratic Party.
The deregulation of the American economic market that started in the 1970s has raised the salaries of professional athletes enormously while decreasing those of blue-collar laborers. In 1975, pitchers Andy Messer Smith of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dave McNally of the Montreal Expos attracted arbitrator Peter Seitz to strike down baseball's reserve provision and allow them to sell their services to the highest bidder. The Seitz decision, which was supported by the UNITED STATES Circuit Court of Appeals in the 8th District, effectively started the time of free agency in professional sports enterprises.
After rising slowly for the initial three-quarters of the century, salaries increased exponentially during the past 25 years of the 1900s and have continued to swell in the 2000s. The Seitz judgment is considered a success for organized labor since the reserve clause was eliminated at the persistence of the Major Organization Baseball Players Association (the MLB's union).
The Seitz decision is thought to be a triumph for labor given it reaffirmed the strength of unions at the bargaining table. The reserve provision already existing entirely for the security of possession - baseball's corporate class. It restricted user movement and reduced salaries because gamers could not get more than a set raise in salary from their owners and couldn't provide their services to various other teams who might pay them more. It limited employee rights and kept the share that players received at a fixed amount, more or less. It is our assertion that the only explanation it lasted as long as it did was due to the federal government granting Major League Baseball an antitrust exemption that was supported by the Supreme Court in 1972.
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