AMLU rejects proposal
 

yep, it is true.

The plot thickens!

What you didn't believe me? :rolleyes:

AMLU Leadership
 

So let me get this straight. AMLU leadership has marathon negotiating sessions with management and finally strikes a deal which they unanimously recommend to the membership for ratification. The membership then votes it down anyway.

Sounds like the AMLU leadership has lost control of the situation. That's what happens when you promise too much.

The union board recommended it because they were forced to. Legally, if they were going to bring a deal back with the federal mediator there, they had to bring it back with a yes recommendation.

They had two options:

1. Walk out of negotiations with no deal for it's members to vote on.

2. Walk out of negotiations recommending a "yes vote" to a crappy deal.

They let the memebership decide...and it did. Good move on their part. How would it have looked if they had just walked away from the table, and the members had no say.

Remember...this deal was WORSE then the previous deal offered by Minor League Baseball. Why in the world would umpires go on strike to obtain a worse deal. It's not like the umpires just rejected a fair contract. This one was still just as unfair as the ones in the past...if not more so.

DIV2ump,

It is my understanding that the negotiation team had to recommend the deal for ratification so the group could vote on it. The team didn't like a deal that gave $2 extra per diem instead of $1, but they had to put it forth to the group as part of the federal mediation.

Minor League Baseball is STUPID to think that the umpires would accept this deal.

The union must be strong...because if it wasn't, then they would have accepted this crappy deal. But instead, they reject it...and NOT ONE AMLU UMPIRE has stepped foot on a Minor League field this year. NOT ONE! That's strength.

I would say that the fact that MiLB felt confident in offering a poorer deal now, 2 months into the replacement-ump season, than it did previously shows some strength as well. Or foolhardiness, as the case may be.....the analogy to "Deal or No Deal" was a great one: the "banker's" offers to walk away from the buzzer are going down, not up.

I guess the replacement game will continue for a while. My question is, upon the end of the collegiate season soon, how many NCAA umpires will cross the picket line? Is this a significant threat?

I agree that they are strong and they did the right thing, but how are they going to get back on the field when baseball just doesn't care about the quailty of umpiring?

Some seem to think that at the end of the NCAA season, there won't be a line to cross. The guys will be done.

I wonder how long MiLB will be willing to pay more money for less qualified umpires to work games. It seems to me like they're willing, for now, to pay whatever it takes to break the union. In time, if they do break the union, and the PBUC restructures, will the fill-in umpires be willing to work for less than what they have been getting?


Tim.

Why would they want to get back on the field if baseball just sees them as warm bodies? Good for them and standing up for themselves. They are MUCH better than the talent that is out there right now. They know that. And it seems like Minor League Baseball told them "we don't care." and they told Minor League Baseball, "then we don't want to work for you."

And if they do lose their jobs, so what? They lost $12,000/year and being away from home for half the year with pretty much zero shot of making major league baseball.

I care about these guys...but it seems like nobody else does. If I were them...i'd be doing the same thing. The contract is obviously unfair. They get paid far less then junior college umpires. That's a joke.

Tim,

PBUC isn't paying more in the overall picture. They are actually have a pretty big net savings, since they don't pay travel, mileage, hotels, medical, off-day expenses, per diem. I probably missed a savings or two, but they aren't paying more than before.

mediation
 

Mediation is non-binding. If they didn't like the deal they simply don't have to recommend it for a vote. The idea that they would go for a bad deal just to have a deal to put in front of the membership is silly. The fact that they recommended it and it went down shows the bargaining committee has no control.

How is management/PBUC supposed to make a deal when the bargaining committee has no credibility when it comes to the committee's ability to sell the deal? This is a serious problem for the AMLU.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/

There's the details of the offer voted down.

EDIT: they keep changing the # of the story. Look for the story on the right hand side of the page at the top under AP News.