Now an already tense and complicated labor dispute could get even thornier over a significant issue: pay and service time for players tied to the missed games.
Though M.L.B. changed its stance this week on canceled games, the wiggle room in the calendar is getting smaller. With further delays, it is unlikely that there will be enough time to reschedule two weeks’ worth of games while keeping the same dates for the World Series in October.
In M.L.B.’s eyes, lost games mean less revenue for its clubs, and thus the league does not believe it should have to compensate players for those missed contests. The union’s position has been that the players will demand full pay and service time for games that M.L.B. unilaterally canceled, or they will attempt to have them rescheduled.
The previous two collective bargaining agreements had been viewed as further tilting the balance of power and economics in the owners’ favor. Realizing that significant changes to the system would be tense and full of brinkmanship, the union spent years preparing for this very fight against M.L.B. owners, who ran an $11 billion-a-year business before the coronavirus pandemic.
With the latest developments, the sides face the high likelihood of the first games being missed because of a work stoppage since the 1994-95 players’ strike, which resulted in the cancellation of more than 900 games and the 1994 World Series. That remains the longest work stoppage in baseball history.