Roger Ian Abrams

Toward a theory of “just cause” in employee discipline cases

In this theoretical article, Professors Abrams and Nolan present the first comprehensive theory of “just cause,” the universal standard employed in collective bargaining agreements to protect employee job security. They examine the fundamental understanding reached by workers and management when employees are hired and then explore the legitimate expectations of both labor and management in the employment setting. The article then applies the theory in a variety of common arbitration scenarios.

THE STRONGEST TRADE UNION IN AMERICA

Writing recent history has its pitfalls. Almost all the participants in the establishment and triumph of the modern baseball players union-the story Charles Korr tells in this interesting new book-are still alive. These workers and managers fought battles for primacy in the business of baseball not that different from Walter Reuthers confrontation with Ford Motor Company at the Rouge Bridge. No wonder their recollections differ. They were all at the barricades but on different sides. At times, it seemed they could not agree on whether the sun rose in the east or the west. They remain either triumphant or angry. The task of any chronicler is to select between contrary recollections and contemporary notations of what actually occurred. Korr has done that here, choosing to tell the story of the success of the Major League Baseball Players Association from the perspective of the victorious union leaders and their rank and file, a perfectly legitimate choice. He was offered unprecedented access to the unions papers and took their notes as gospel. It is not surprising then that his story is decidedly pro-union. As a result, he has produced a onesided account of the unions infancy, adolescence, and coming of age as the strongest trade union in America. Baseball was never supposed to be this way. When the magnates of the National League formed their circuit in a New York City hotel suite in 1876, they knew that controlling the market for players was going to be their foremost challenge. Within three years, club owners had created a reserve system that effectively eliminated competition for player services at the major league level. In the process, the owners infantilized their ballplayers and mythologized their sport for a century. The talented young entertainers who played the game became totally dependent on their assigned owners for their livelihood. Under the reserve

The public regulation of baseball labor relations and the public interest.

This essay discusses the limited role played by the law in the regulation of baseball labor relations. What is termed the legal architecture of the baseball business is a superstructure of federal labor statutes that supported unionization to thereby facilitate the efforts of the Players Association to achieve the aspirations of the players. Protection of the public interest in baseball is primarily the obligation of the marketplace and of collective bargaining. In one instance, however, the law played a direct and immediate role in support of the publics interest in the continuity of baseball entertainment. The 1994 strike that almost ended the national pastime is described. A federal district court judge, however, at the behest of the National Labor Relations Board, saved baseball from itself. Whether the public interest has been served by this system of regulation is assessed, and it is concluded that the picture is mixed and the ultimate outcome remains uncertain.

Federal League Baseball Club of Baltimore v National League et al. 259 US 200 (1922)

The claimant, a baseball club, sought review of a decision of the United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, which reversed a judgment awarding the club damages for a conspiracy by the defendants to monopolise the baseball industry in violation of federal antitrust/competition law, namely the Sherman Act 1890. The claimants alleged that the defendants had conspired by purchasing or inducing all other clubs in the claimant’s former league to leave that league. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the US Court of Appeals and held that the conduct charged against the defendants was not an interference with interstate commerce as prohibited by, and within the meaning of, the Sherman Act. The US Supreme Court’s rationale was that, although competitions between the various clubs required extensive and repeated travel across state lines by players and officials, such travel was merely incidental to baseball competitions. The business of providing and organising public baseball games for profit between professional clubs in rival league formats was not interstate commerce: baseball was purely a state affair and thus America’s “national game” was not subject to federal antitrust law.

The Common Law of the Labor Agreement: Vacations

In this article, Professor Abrams and Nolan continue their review of the common topics addressed by labor arbitrators. Vacations are a particularly challenging matter involving work qualification requirements and calculations of benefits issues. Abrams and Nolan suggest ways labor and management can design their vacation systems to avoid later problems in arbitration.