Membership Benefits
Unions and Professional Athletes
A union for professional athletes? Why would someone making huge sums of money need a union? In fact, actors, doctors, performing artists, and athletes are union members in higher percentages than other occupations.
Major League baseball players, possibly one of the most exploited groups of workers, began their quest for union representation in 1885 with the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players. It took players almost 100 years to address their primary concern: the reserve system.
Baseball was the only sport exempt from anti-trust laws, and since 1868 a reserve clause stated that players could only deal with the club that originally hired them, thus creating indentured ball players who could not bargain for their fair share of the industry's profits.
After numerous attempts at unionism, the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed in 1968 with the assistance of the United Steel Workers, and they successfully continued the fight for free agency, the ability of players to sell their services to the highest bidder.
The United Steel Workers taught them that they have greater leverage if they act in unison, and ball players continue to fight for equality and fair play in their industry. Other professionals also know first-hand the power of solidarity.
Former president of Actors' Equity, Ralph Bellamy, said it best: "There wouldn't be a profession if it weren't for the unions. Before the unions, actors were equated with thieves and prostitutes. It was only through their unions that they gained some status, and had to be dealt with as a profession by employers and the public. It was only because of their unions that they couldn't be ignored." (Douglas, The Unionized Professoriate (1986), 48).
