The agreement ends in December, 2026.
In the rhetoric game, the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Tony Clark, has turned up the heat in the Major League Baseball owners-players association collective bargaining agreement negotiations by saying he expects his players to be locked out on December 2nd, 2026 when the present agreement ends. “Unless I am mistaken the league has come out and said there’s going to be a work stoppage. So, I don’t think I’m speaking out of school in that regard.” said Clark. Tony Clark is just reading the tea leaves but he knows that Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein is pushing for a salary cap and New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner is voicing concern over the amount of dollars the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership is handing out to players.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is of the opinion that a lockout starting in December, 2026, about 10 weeks ahead of the start of spring training might be a productive negotiating strategy. “In a bizarre way, it’s actually a positive,” Manfred said. “There is leverage associated with an offseason lockout and the process of collective bargaining under the NLRA works based on leverage. The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties.” Manfred said baseball’s finances “is at the top of my list of concerns about what’s occurring in the sport.” Clark knows that he is engaging in a battle of words with Manfred and his owners right now. “When the commissioner suggests openly that the expectation is a work stoppage and that a lockout is the new norm or should be considered as much, that’s going to lend itself to some conversation even though we’re a year-and-a-half, two years away from the expiration of the agreement. It is early in the CBA game but the rhetoric is in midseason form.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
