[Rich]

Originally posted by Carl Childress

I don't know about other minor league umpires, but Jason is a member of TASO and a D1 college official. Generally, he's had four to five weeks of amateur baseball before he reports to his minor league.

When the hockey officials were locked out, they did not drop down to minor league hockey though many did work in Europe.

The test, though, should not be whether minor league umpires accept amateur games. During a strike, moving down, taking other jobs, has always been sanctioned.

It's when an umpire moves up that the union is weakened. In 1984, 12 college umpires walked into a play-off situation. If the AMLU strikes, far more than a dozen would be needed.

BTW: There's no doubt that your article is different from the one I published.

I have no problem with umpires working the games they normally work, Carl. But I can't wait to see if long season minor league umpires start competing with established HS and college umpires for assignments. We shouldn't take their games, but I will bet that many will take ours.

BTW, here's the email I received this morning. Another umpire has received FOUR copies from different umpires:

My name is Andy Russell and I am a professional baseball umpire .I would like to ask you for a few minutes of your time to update or inform you on the Association of Minor League Umpires (AMLU) and our current negotiations with Minor League Baseball (MiLB) and Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation (PBUC).

As some of you may have already heard, our contract and collective bargaining agreement has expired and we have been in negotiations with MiLB/PBUC for the past three months. We are asking for better wages and living conditions for the umpires of today, and for those who will follow in our paths. To date, MiLB/PBUC and the AMLU have been unsuccessful on agreeing to a new contract. With that being said, the AMLU has made a decision not to attend spring training this year.

In a nutshell, minor league umpires have not had a pay raise in over TEN years. In fact, seven years ago there was actually a DECREASE in pay and a wage freeze put in place. Five years ago the minor league umpires formed an association and signed their first contract ever. It was believed to be a major step in the right direction, but as it turned out it gave MiLB almost deity-like power over the umpires. They have pushed us around for five years, and have treated us like dirt. It has come time for things to change, and this is the year for it to happen.

We are not asking baseball to make minor league umpires rich, but we are asking them to come up to level that will allow us to follow our career paths with affordable means - right now, the wages are not livable. The top AAA umpires currently make $14,000/season (give or take). Our per diem is $25/day at the highest level while the government allows for a MINIMUM of $40/day, with many of the MiLB cities listed closer to $50.

Some of you may be approached to either work games in spring training or even the regular season, as this has been happening recently in minor league cities throughout the country. As my fellow brothers on the field, and also as friends with whom I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know over the past few years, I would ask that you take our situation into consideration if you are contacted. MiLB believes that they have a broad pool of talent to choose from to replace us in spring, and also in the event of a work stoppage. By agreeing to work in our stead, you would be denying us any hope of leverage in negotiations.

If you have not already read the numerous articles about our situation, you can visit the AMLU website (www.amlu.org) and view some of the articles there. Also, doing a Google search about minor league umpires and contracts or negotiations will produce a multitude of results. If, for whatever reason, you can’t find these articles and would like to read them, please feel free to contact me and I will forward them to you.

I hope this information helps and each of you better understand what we are trying to accomplish and that you will seriously consider standing behind our effort. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for umpires in the minor leagues. If we don't make a stand now, MiLB will never have to take us seriously and we will be pushed around forever.

If anyone has questions, comments, concerns or any information about contact that has been made by MLB or MiLB that they would like to share, I ask you please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, or with any of the other guys I will list at the end of this letter.

I can’t thank you all enough for taking the time to read through this and for any and all support that you can give.
Andy Russell
South Atlantic League


[Edited by Rich Fronheiser on Feb 28th, 2006 at 03:12 PM]