One former minor league player-turned-attorney filed a class-action lawsuit against the MLB and its teams. Then, Krissy Clark, host of The Uncertain Hour, takes us back to the 1930s to show how companies have been pushing back against worker protections since they first became law.įinally, we go back to the ballfield to learn how the MLB has exploited loopholes in federal law to get around paying minimum wage and overtime. The Uncertain Hour’s Peter Balonon-Rosen explores just how low wages really are in Major League Baseball’s “farm system” of minor leagues, where the MLB calls players “trainees.” Minor league players share stories of having to sleep on air mattresses, splitting rent with up to seven other players and barely being able to afford a burrito. But their players are not covered by some classic American laws: Players can earn less than the equivalent of minimum wage and don’t get paid overtime. With the team of The Uncertain Hour from our colleagues at Marketplace, we explore how minor league players face low wages and grueling work.įrom the Frisco RoughRiders to the Dayton Dragons, minor league baseball teams are a classic American tradition.
In September, thousands of minor league baseball players joined the players union, and Major League Baseball voluntarily agreed to recognize the union as players’ official bargaining representative.