Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., introduced new legislation Wednesday, Nov. 20, aimed at strengthening pay protections for minor league baseball players. The Fair Ball Act would pair back an exemption in the Save America’s Pastime Act (SAPA) that allows Major League Baseball to avoid wage and overtime laws. 

The proposed act would allow SAPA’s wage exemption to stay in place as long as minor league players are collectively bargained. In the absence of a union agreement, players would be entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay.

“While I commend MLB for voluntarily recognizing the unionization of Minor League Baseball Players in 2022, it is time to rollback SAPA in deference to the gains made by that historic unionization,” Durbin said in a statement.

The battle over minor league pay

For years, minor league players struggled under the league’s antitrust exemption, which allowed MLB to pay them less than minimum wage. In 2014, former players filed a class action lawsuit against the MLB, claiming the league violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime laws. Those players said they worked 50 to 60 hours per week and weren’t paid for work done during camps outside of the regular season. Lower-level minor leaguers were making as little as $5,000 a year.

Around this time, the MLB lobbied for the Save America’s Pastime Act to protect minor league pay practices from legal action. Lawmakers introduced the bill in 2016 as the lawsuit was making its way through the courts. It didn’t get much support at first but eventually made it into 2018’s omnibus spending package.

“It was snuck in on page 1,967 of the bill in the dark of night,” said Garrett Broshuis, a former minor leaguer and lawyer behind the lawsuit. “Most of the congressmen and congresswomen didn’t know it was in there when they were voting for it.”

The MLB eventually settled the lawsuit in 2022. The league agreed to pay minor league players $185 million in restitution. As a result, roughly 24,000 minor leaguers who played from 2009 to 2022 were eligible for payments that averaged roughly $5,000.

That same year, minor league players made history by joining the MLB Players Association, getting union representation for the first time. The MLBPA then agreed to a five-year labor contract that significantly increased salaries and confirmed players would be paid for off-season work.

Under the terms of the deal, minimum salaries for players in rookie complex leagues jumped from $4,800 to $19,800. Meanwhile, Triple-A players’ minimum salaries doubled from $17,500 to $35,800.

Despite bargaining, the exemption still exists

While the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) gives minor leaguers a better wage, the law on the books, the Save America’s Pastime Act, said the MLB doesn’t have to abide by the nation’s minimum wage and overtime laws.

The Fair Ball Act, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal-D-Conn., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., aims to stop the MLB from using the previous legislation to strong-arm the union and players when they enter negotiations after the 2027 season.

“It would do this by ensuring MLB has a continued interest in maintaining a CBA—which would trigger the exemption from federal wage and hour laws for Minor League players in deference to the CBA—and would prevent MLB from using SAPA’s broad exemption as leverage during the next round of CBA negotiations,” Durbin said in a statement about the legislation.

Sen. Durbin’s passion for baseball stretches decades

The MLBPA said its more than 6,000 members expressed their “full support for the Fair Ball Act.”

“For decades, the living and working conditions faced by Minor League ballplayers were indefensible,” MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark wrote in a letter to Durbin. “Whether in the form of poverty-level wages, substandard living conditions, or inadequate food and nutrition (to name just a few), Minor Leaguers were treated as secondclass citizens instead of the world-class athletes that they are.”

The MLB has not commented on the bill. With just weeks left in the congressional session and a major spending bill to pass before Dec. 20, it’s unlikely to get much traction before the next Congress.