MLB History: New Umpire Union Founded After Mass Resignations
A disastrous decision to have all of the Major League umpires resign as a negotiating ploy had backfired. After their union was destroyed, MLB umpires formed a new union on this day in 1999.
For almost 30 years, the Major League Umpires Association had worked to raise wages and help protect umpires in MLB. With lead counsel Richie Phillips at the helm, the Association had become an actual bargaining force, changing the way that umpires were perceived by the game. Vacation time, increases in pay, and an actual say at the negotiating table all came about under his leadership.
However, all it took was one grave misstep to cause his progress to be stripped away. With a stalemate in negotiations, Phillips suggested that all the umpires resign en masse on September 2, 1999. When that happened, the MLB accepted the resignations, then rehired the umpires it desired to keep. The union was effectively destroyed in that one fell swoop.
Devoid of true bargaining power again, it was time for the umpires to create another union. A vote was held on this day later that year, as umpires John Hirschbeck and Joe Brinkman were aiming to create another union. With 22 umpires out of a job, the remaining umpires voted 57-35 to create a new union. As such, the World Umpires Association was born.
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There were several changes that needed to be made. First, the board was stocked entirely with umpires, who had the best sense as to what they were truly needing in negotiations. Second, the tone of the negotiations changed. No longer were the negotiations fraught with tension and anger; now, there actual negotiating would take place.
But what of those umpires that lost their jobs? That was the first task that the new union had to deal with. They were able to get most of the umpires their jobs back with the MLB, and those who were not rehired were allowed to retire with compensation for the time they missed.
As unfortunate a decision as it had been to hand in those mass resignations, that may have been exactly what was needed. MLB and the Player’s Union had gotten over their adversarial nature after the disastrous strike in 1994, as they had been working together with unprecedented labor peace (we’ll see if that is still the case in a couple of days). The same needed to happen with the umpires and Major League Baseball in order to allow the sport to truly come back.
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Sometimes, a terrible decision can lead to the right path. On this day in 1999, with the creation of a new union, that ended up being the case.