Baseball's Salary Wars Are About to Go Nuclear

Kyle Tucker

THERE IS A group of fans who are angry at baseball. There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye rolls and curses, and they might just want to devote more time to the game -- maybe they love the pitch clock or Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge or the in-person vibe or any number of things about the game today worth loving -- but they're not sure the whole thing is fair.

Owners are angry, too. Their franchise valuations aren't growing as quickly as their billionaire peers' in other sports, and they blame the system that governs Major League Baseball. They don't like it. Nearly every owner believes MLB needs a salary cap. Its presence, owners say, immediately would juice franchise values, with the labor cost essentially fixed and no more chasing Dodgers teams spending $500 million annually on players. At the same time, they say, it would provide a pathway to competitive balance, which they believe is entirely out of whack. They think a salary cap will fix everything, even if it means jeopardizing the 2027 season. "They are ready to burn the f---ing house down," one high-ranking team official said.

Read the rest here.

HT: BW

The UAW Strike: How wide is the pay gap between the boardroom and the assembly line?

The experts disagree on the bottom-line, but no matter how you do the math, boardroom compensation has exploded in recent decades to the point where the pay gap between top management and the average worker which used to average around 15:1 in the 1960s, is now closer to 300:1. That is not just troubling; it's immoral. And to add the icing to the cake, a lot of these compensation packages are deliberately structured in ways intended to shield their true value from scrutiny and taxes. 

In the history of the world, no economic system has delivered more dramatic improvements in quality of life, to more people, in such a short period of time as capitalism. And I am all for an honest profit in business. But the emphasis needs to be on "honest," not "profit." You can't build a moral system where the guy who turns out the product is being paid less than 1/2 of one cent for every dollar being shelled out to the suits in the boardroom. 

To be clear, I'm not endorsing all of the UAW's demands. But they have grievances, and a lot of them are legitimate.

These are picket lines that I would not cross. 

US and India in diplomatic tiff

Tit for tat appears to be how this is being handled. We expelled one of their diplomats and now they are returning the favor. Here is the short version of whats going on for those who don't keep up with Foreign Affairs.

An Indian diplomat in the US was recently accused by her maid of not paying her fair wages. Apparently the maid, who is Indian, signed a contract agreeing to work for her boss in the US with the understanding she would be paid US minimum wage and given reasonable time off. This is required when foreign diplomats import labor from outside of the United States. She contends that she was subsequently forced by her employer to sign a new contract and was only paid about $3.00 an hour and required to work very long hours with no overtime and little time off. The diplomat denies this.

In any case New York treated it as a crime and arrested the Indian diplomat and not only handcuffed her but subjected her to a strip search and at least briefly to incarceration. The Indian government, fully backed by popular outrage, was livid.

My take: Up to a point India was absolutely right to be ticked off. This was a crystal clear violation of diplomatic immunity guaranteed under the Treaty of Vienna. Said treaty provisions are an extremely important article of international law and we DO NOT want to mess with it, even if it sometimes means dirtbags get to walk. The correct way to handle this would have been to declare her persona non grata, which in the end is what happened.

On a side note, most Indians seem to have little sympathy for the victim in all of this which I find unfortunate. Their view is that she being from India was making much more, even at her reduced wages, than most domestic workers ("servants" in traditional parlance) in India. Of course that is completely irrelevant. She was not in India. If Indian diplomats want to employ people at wages customary in their country, they may do so, IN THEIR COUNTRY.

This is not India and I frankly don't care where the poor girl came from. In this country if you hire someone you have to obey the relevant labor laws. If you can afford it I have no issue with engaging domestic help, as long as you pay them an honest and fair wage.

Part of me wonders if this lady diplomat didn't spend a little too much time watching Downton Abbey. Back in Lord Grantham's day a maid could reasonably expect a wage of perhaps £25.00 per annum with a half day off per week and a half day, gratis, on Boxing Day plus room and board. In exchange she could look forward to an average day of rarely less than 16 hours of backbreaking work.

Of course back then India was a British colony and a lot of those servants were Indians.

Fast Food Workers Strike For Better Pay And Rights

NEW YORK (AP) — Workers at McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's restaurants across New York walked out Monday in a one-day strike to demand better pay and the right to unionize, calling for minimum wage to more than double from $7.25 to $15 an hour and the end to what activists called "abusive labor practices."

"It's noisy, it's really hot, fast, they rush you. Sometimes you don't even get breaks. All for $7.25? It's crazy," said Nathalia Sepulveda, who works at a McDonald's opposite Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where one protest took place.

Outside the McDonald's as well as a Wendy's in lower Manhattan, workers chanted "we can't survive on $7.25" and "supersize our wages." At the Wendy's, the crowd shouted at customers not to go in and two police officers were stationed inside.

Read the rest here.

Not a huge fan of unions here, but this is clearly a case of abusive labor practices. $7.25 an hour in New York City? That's scandalous. I am not sure about a $15 hr wage, but they are absolutely right to call out their greedy employers on this issue. And frankly they are doing it the right way. Instead of asking the government to interfere they are exercising their individual rights to band together and demand better wages and working conditions. This is the libertarian approach.

I wish them luck.

New York: Fast Food Workers Strike

They work for some of the biggest businesses in the United States, yet they are among the country's lowest-paid workers.

On Thursday, fast-food workers staged walkouts at McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and other restaurants in New York City to call attention to their plight. Organizers scheduled the job actions to commemorate the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 45 years ago in Memphis, where he was supporting a strike by sanitation workers.

"It's not enough," Elba Godoy, a crew member at a McDonald's just a few blocks from Times Square, said of her $7.25-per-hour minimum wage, which helps support her extended family of seven. "They don't like [that we're out here], but we have to do it. We cannot survive on $7.25."

Godoy and her colleagues are seeking a raise to $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. The walkout is part of a national movement by low-wage workers to raise wages and gain rights.

Read the rest here.

I think this is a great example of a libertarian response to abusive behavior by employers. The employers are clearly taking advantage of their workers. I mean come on! 7.25 hr in New York City is scandalous. What's more is that the employers know that most of their employees are paid so poorly they qualify for welfare and food stamps. In effect this is a tax payer funded subsidy for greedy corporations. Liberals argue that the answer is to raise the minimum wage. But that's a lousy idea because while $7.25 hr is outrageous in New York City there are some places in this country where it's an acceptable albeit low paying wage and raising the minimum wage might kill the jobs in question.

The correct answer is that workers, being the free agents of their own labor should have the right to get together and collectively tell their employers to cough up or go without their services. The article suggests they are shooting for an unreasonable wage ($15 hr) but that is probably just a bargaining ploy. In any case McDonald's etc. should be ashamed of paying people in that area such a low wage. I wish the employees luck in their battle and would boycott fast food in support except of course Lent kinda covers that. And in any case I swore off fast food over a year ago for health reasons.

Emails suggest Obama Administration was behind loss of pensions by non-union workers

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.

The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.

Read the rest here

Note: The Daily Caller is an independent news source that claims ideological neutrality. This however is not universally accepted. In any case they seem to have the emails to back their story up.

Wisconsin Governor fends off recall attempt

WAUKESHA, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) survived a furious recall campaign on Tuesday, emerging as the victor in a bitter fight over state budgets and collective bargaining rights.

NBC News declared Walker the projected winner over Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, in the closely-watched campaign, an outgrowth of a contentious fight in early 2011 after Walker drove a bill stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights through Wisconsin's legislature.

Walker's victory served as a symbolic victory for a generation of reform-minded conservatives; the crowd at Walker's Waukesha election night party let out a large cheer when a local NBC affiliate showed the projection of Walker's victory.

Read the rest here.

Good. I don't care for the man's politics but this was an abuse of the recall. The appropriate time to fire a politician whose policies you don't like is in regularly scheduled general elections, not through recalls engineered by big money special interest groups who were offended. A recall should be reserved for corruption or a gross abuse of power. This sort of thing is a slippery slope. Once you start down it no one will ever be able to undertake any kind of controversial policy decisions without having to worry about which special interest with deep pockets is going to try to throw him/her out of office early. That threat has become much more acute with the SCOTUS effectively opening the floodgates to unlimited political contributions by entities that can't vote.

Employees fighting for overtime pay

Everyone from pharmaceutical reps to home health care aides to waiters and waitresses in fancy restaurants are sick of working off the clock, and they’re looking to finally punch in.

This week, the Supreme Court is reviewing a case involving pharmaceutical representatives who claim they’re owed overtime pay even though their employer, GlaxoSmithKline, contends they’re sales people and not entitled to it.

Last month, a case involving celebrity chef Mario Batali’s restaurants and unpaid overtime and tips for employees was settled for $5.2 million. And earlier this year, Swiss drugmaker Norvartis AG agreed to settle a class action overtime suit for $99 million brought by its sales representatives.

Read the rest here.

Banker Leaves 1% Tip On $133 Lunch Bill In Defiance of 'The 99%' (UPDATE: IT WAS A HOAX)

A banker left a 1% tip in defiance of 'the 99%' at a Newport Beach restaurant the other week, according to his dining companion and underling who snapped a photo of the receipt and posted it to his blog, Future Ex Banker. (Update: the blog is now offline.)

In posting the photo, the employee gave some background on his boss and the receipt:

Mention the “99%” in my boss’ presence and feel his wrath. So proudly does he wear his 1% badge of honor that he tips exactly 1% every time he feels the server doesn’t sufficiently bow down to his Holiness. Oh, and he always makes sure to include a “tip” of his own.

The "tip" of his own in this case was to tell the server to "get a real job."

Read the rest here.

What a no-class bum!

Update: This was a hoax.  The image was doctored and the whole thing was a lie.  One can reasonably suspect that it was done by someone with a left wing political agenda.  In any case I am leaving this up as a cautionary reminder of the willingness of people to lie and fabricate to advance an agenda.

For The Record

I will not knowingly patronize any retail business during the Christmas shopping season that is open on Thanksgiving and forcing its employees to work on that day.  Right now that list includes at least three major retailers, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Target.  Shame on them.

Enough with the greed already!

Black Friday 2011 deal mania: Thanksgiving hours spark backlash

Black Friday is just around the corner, and retailers such as Target, Toys “R” Us, Macy’s and others are racing to advertise deals and their extended hours. Many of the major retailers will open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving, which has sparked backlash from some employees. As Ashley Lutz reported:

Anthony Hardwick says he resents working at Target Corp. on Thanksgiving and has garnered more than 37,000 signatures on an online protest petition.

Target, Macy’s Inc., Gap Inc., Kohl’s Corp., Toys “R” Us Inc. and Best Buy Co. all plan to open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving in an attempt to goose sales that the National Retail Federation says may rise just 2.8 percent this holiday season, or about half as much as last year.

Hardwick, 29, who says he has been a Target parking attendant in Omaha for three years, began the petition two weeks ago on the Web site Change.org after learning that he and his coworkers would be required to start at 11 p.m. Nov. 24 for a 10-hour shift.

“I was so disappointed the day I found out about this because I did the math in my head and I was going to have to go to bed in the early afternoon on Thanksgiving to go in and work 10 hours,” Hardwick said in a telephone interview. “Everyone at work was resigned because the economy is bad and so our employer has us over a barrel.”

Hardwick said that he hasn’t heard from Target and that he fears losing his job for starting the protest and speaking to the media.

Read the rest here.

Hertz fires 26 Muslim shuttle drivers who refused to clock out for prayer breaks

After a continued refusal to clock out when taking a break to pray, Hertz axed more than two dozen employees at one of America's busiest airports.

A Hertz spokesman said he was disappointed that 26 Muslim drivers at Sea-Tac Airport chose to be fired rather than clock out for prayer breaks.

One of the fired employees, Ileys Omar, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 'We feel like we're being punished for what we believe in.'

Read the rest here.

Washington Wants a Say Over Your Minister

Today, the Obama administration will invite the Supreme Court to open a new front in the culture wars. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC concerns a commissioned minister, Cheryl Perich, who taught elementary school and led chapel devotions at a small Lutheran school outside Detroit. Ms. Perich became ill and was replaced in the classroom by a substitute. In the middle of the school year she sought to return and then, instead of attempting to work out the dispute through the church's reconciliation process, she threatened to sue.

As relations broke down, the church congregation voted to withdraw her "call" to the ministry, and she ceased to be eligible for her prior job. She sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, with the support of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The federal statutes outlawing employment discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability contain no express exception for church employers. But for 40 years lower courts have applied a "ministerial exception," which bars the government from any role in deciding who should be a minister. Courts have reasoned that the separation between church and state protects the ability of churches to choose their own clergy just as it protects the state from any control by churches. The Supreme Court has never spoken to the issue.

But who counts as a minister? Cheryl Perich's duties included leading students in prayer and worship, but she also taught secular subjects, using ordinary secular textbooks. The sole disagreement in the lower courts was whether her job was sufficiently religious to be considered ministerial. The Supreme Court will consider, for the first time, how to make that determination.

But the Obama Justice Department has now asked the court to disavow the ministerial exception altogether. This would mean that, in every future case, a court—and not the church—would decide whether the church's reasons for firing or not hiring a minister were good enough.

Read the rest here.

So you think you have a tough work environment

A contest offering $10 to guess which of your colleagues will be fired next is a good reason to quit your job, according to a judge in Iowa.

Administrative Law Judge Susan D. Ackerman ruled that Misty Shelsky, who worked at the QC Mart convenience store chain for two years, was eligible for unemployment insurance after quitting her job because her employer held a contest offering $10 to the employee who correctly guessed which colleague would next be fired.

Shelsky quit after receiving a memo that announced: “NEW CONTEST – GUESS THE NEXT CASHIER WHO WILL BE FIRED!!!," according to case records.

Read the rest here.

Spat over Boeing plant sparks political firestorm

It started as bad blood between aerospace giant Boeing Co. and its unionized production workers.

But now a feud over Boeing’s decision to assemble some of its 787 jetliners at a new, non-union facility in South Carolina has mushroomed into a very public and highly political fight over outsourcing, right-to-work states and the future of the National Labor Relations Board.

The clash's outcome could hinge on whether Boeing executives publicly said more than they should have about their motivation for opening the new plant in South Carolina.

Read the rest here.