Baseball hasn't really solved its problems with this agreement. The way this agreement was negotiated has given people the wrong idea of what unions are all about.
One of my local stations had its daily website "Cybervote" connected with the baseball negotiations: "Are you for or against unions?" This was a Miss America question of the stupidest order: "So, Miss Michigan, are unions a good thing, or a bad thing?" The former Miss Flint, daughter of an unemployed Ford assembly worker, then answers, “a bad thing” as she bats her fake eyelashes.
I am a union man - just because these baseball players want to secure exorbitant salaries for themselves, doesn't mean that unions in general suck. Then I read David Wells’ comments on E$PN.com:
"He's (Buddy boy Selig) coming in and trying to break our union, basically.”
"I believe in our union. I believe in what we stand for and what we've done. A lot of guys over the years have went on strike to put us in a better position and helped give us a better life in baseball. And I think we have to do the same for the younger generation, to show, 'Hey, we've got a union. We're not going to let these people come in and try to take over,' because if they did, then this game, it would be like the NFL -- caps. They've got all that. And I don't think we should have one.”
What? Your “union?” Real unions exist to protect real working people from the real abuses of corporate excess. “Breaking the union?” Wells has no idea what real union breaking tactics are. What’s Bud gonna do, take away his Harley collection? Deprive him of his daily rations of KFC? OK Dave – you’re in New York City - go to the Brown Building at 23-29 Washington Place to see why real unions exist. This building housed the former Triangle Shirtwaist Company that employed teenage immigrant girls, paid them by the piece and levied heavy quotas on their production. It was here where, on March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the 8th floor. There were no safety, fire, or building codes so the fire spread rapidly. The only fire escape was rusted and women trying to escape using it plummeted to their deaths. The foremen always locked the doors from the outside to keep the women focused on their work and to prevent them from using the restrooms, so there was no escape when the fire burned out of control. The women began to jump out of the building to their deaths, some of them jumping as their bodies were burning.
Dave - you have no right to compare yourself or your working conditions to those of real working men and women. You can show the "younger generations" whatever the hell you want, (that greed and avarice are more important than the integrity of the game), but you haven't got a union. The older generations, on whose backs your pampered lifestyle was earned, who would play through the worst conditions while being paid a pittance compared to today, are hiding their heads in shame. I don’t see any of them with a chauffer, a Rolls, and a house in The Hamptons.
I would have told you not to expect me in your “picket line”, but when would you have ever been in mine, anyway?