{"id":782840,"date":"2026-07-06T14:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782840\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T14:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:58:09","slug":"mlb-cba-labor-fight-players-union-options-and-more-lockout-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782840\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB CBA Labor Fight: Players, Union Options and More Lockout Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe current collective bargaining<\/a> agreement between Major League Baseball<\/a> and the Major League Baseball Players Association is set to expire at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1. It is expected that MLB will institute a lockout following the CBA\u2019s expiration, and the lockout could threaten the 2027 season.\u00a0Sportico\u2019s Michael McCann, who is an attorney and a law professor, breaks down the potential legal fallout of a lockout in two parts. Part I<\/a> analyzed the outlines of the labor<\/a> dispute and the legal questions confronting MLB and management. Below is Part II, which looks more closely at the player and labor side of the legal question.<\/p>\n

\n\t1. Could MLB Players Go on Strike Before the Lockout?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, but that is unlikely. MLB players have gone on strike several times in the past. The most recent one, in 1994-95, lasted 232 days and led to the forfeiture of 948 games, including the 1994 World Series.<\/p>\n

\n\tA strike is a work stoppage intended to pressure management into going along with a union\u2019s demands. The advantage for MLB players in striking would be to disrupt MLB\u2019s business operations by not showing up for work. That would lead to canceled games and potential contract problems with broadcast partners, sponsors, food and beverage vendors and others in contract with teams. It would inflict financial pain.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there are several downsides for players in preempting an MLB lockout by going on strike. The most obvious is players would forgo pay. Another is public relations, in that players would likely face criticism for abruptly suspending, and potentially ending, the 2026 season. In contrast, with a lockout, the players can argue they want to play and entertain fans, but the owners are preventing that from happening.<\/p>\n

\n\t2. Could MLB Turn to Replacement Players?<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder basic labor law, MLB could hire temporary workers during a lockout, but that is not going to happen.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen players went on strike in 1994-95, MLB teams hired replacement players during spring training in 1995. Some were minor leaguers; others were former MLB players. The move was extremely unpopular with fans, and the replacement players, who were described as scabs, wound up barred from MLBPA<\/a> membership. The plan ended when, as explained below, a federal judge issued a key injunction, and the players ended the strike shortly before the start of the 1995 season.<\/p>\n

\n\t3. Could the MLBPA or Individual Players Sue MLB Ahead of a Lockout?<\/p>\n

\n\tA judge would likely dismiss such a lawsuit, because the players and the league have a union-management relationship in which both sides contractually agree to handle difficulties in their relationship through negotiation and arbitration procedures. A judge would be skeptical of a lawsuit that tries to circumvent the labor process.<\/p>\n

\n\t4. Could the Union or Players Sue MLB After the Lockout Starts?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe method used by players\u2019 associations to litigate against leagues who lock out players is decertification, or the similar step of disclaiming interest. Those methods involve the union ending its exclusive bargaining role on behalf of players and players then suing the league on antitrust<\/a> grounds. Players could challenge free agency restrictions, the draft and other restraints on trade. These rules are all problematic with antitrust law since they reflect competing businesses (the teams) joining hands to limit how they compete for the services of players, and the players lose money and opportunities as a result.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose restraints are ordinarily exempt from antitrust scrutiny because they were bargained by MLB and MLBPA. Collectively bargained rules are protected by the non-statutory labor exemption, which was forged by a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and which grants immunity to collectively bargained rules that primarily impact wages, hours and other employee working conditions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NFLPA and NBPA both pursued this strategy in 2011. Individual players, including Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Vincent Jackson, Mike Vrabel, Carmelo Anthony and Kawhi Leonard, sued in hopes of a court order ending their respective league lockouts. The NFL players\u2019 effort came up short when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that a federal law, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, prohibits judges from issuing injunctions in cases that involve or grow out of a labor dispute.<\/p>\n

\n\t5. Could Prep and College Players Sue If a CBA Bans Them?<\/p>\n

\n\tA lawsuit brought by players who are excluded from MLB on account of new, collectively bargained age-eligibility restrictions would face a daunting challenge. The simple fact is unions and management can lawfully bargain eligibility rules that exclude prospective members, so MLB\u2019s proposed restrictions on players signing until they\u2019re at least 20 years old and two years out of high school would likely hold up if they\u2019re part of a CBA.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is a topic I know well from serving as an attorney for Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett in\u00a0his antitrust lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the NFL over its eligibility rule requiring that players be three years removed from high school. Our team argued that the rule violated antitrust law and was not bargained. We won at the district court level but lost at the Second Circuit in a decision authored by then-Judge and now U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It\u2019s difficult to see a path for baseball players who are excluded being able to litigate their way into the league.<\/p>\n

\n\t7. Could Fans Sue to Make the Two Sides Settle?<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch a lawsuit would be dismissed. Fans lack standing, meaning an actual, concrete injury that stems from the contractual relationship between MLB and the MLBPA. They are strangers to that relationship and are simply upset, which is not a type of injury the law remedies.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason ticket holders and others in contract with teams might have rights to refunds, though any potential litigation could be preempted by mandatory arbitration clauses.<\/p>\n

\n\t8. Could a Judge End the Lockout?<\/p>\n

\n\tA judge could substantially influence the end of a labor dispute, though ultimately the league and the union will need to strike a deal on their own.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn March 1995, Sotomayor\u00a0granted an injunction<\/a> sought by the NLRB to implement the terms of an expired CBA. The ruling rejected a new set of economic rules, including restraints on free agency, that MLB unilaterally imposed during the players\u2019 strike.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling also reflected Sotomayor\u2019s reasoning that owners and players were still bargaining in good faith and that salary policies were mandatory subjects of bargaining. The strike ended four days later, the 1995 season was saved, and, after further negotiations, the two sides reached a deal in 1996. MLB didn\u2019t get its desired salary cap in the new CBA but did get the luxury tax system.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether a lockout this December and into 2027 would lead to the kind of litigation that propelled the end of the 1994-95 strike remains to be seen, but it could play out in a similar way.<\/p>\n

\n\t9. How Will the Lockout End?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt will end when the two sides reach a deal both sides will eventually concede could have been reached sooner.<\/p>\n

\n\tTiming matters. If games are lost, both sides will lose money. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that NBA owners and the union membership\u00a0each forfeited about $400 million<\/a> in revenue due to the lockout-induced reduction in the 2011-12 regular season from 82 games to 66 games.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe same government agency reached\u00a0similar conclusions<\/a> about the 1994-95 strike, with owners losing about a billion dollars and players losing in the hundreds of millions. Those of us old enough to remember the 1994-95 strike recall it as a disaster for the sport, as fans were annoyed by both owners and players, and many turned to other life interests. It took a steroid-fueled home run chase in 1997 to bring fans back.<\/p>\n

\n\tTiming matters for players in another way. They only have a limited window to play professional baseball due to the unique set of physical skills, fitness and training necessary. One study has found the average MLB career lasts\u00a0about 5.6 years<\/a>, meaning most of a player\u2019s professional life will be spent in a career outside the field of play. A lost 2027 season could be like a person in an ordinary career losing a decade of work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association is set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[34253,64,63,370186,1788,5882,591,182635,85],"class_list":["post-782840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-antitrust","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-collective-bargaining","tag-labor","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlbpa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}