Two Lawyers To File Unfair Labor Complaint Against MLBPA
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Attorneys Preparing Lawsuit Against MLBPA
Over Drug Testing Protection |
Florida-based lawyers Jack Thompson and Ellis Rubin sent a letter Friday to MLBPA Exec Dir Donald Fehr and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig "informing them of their intent to file an unfair labor practice complaint" against the MLBPA, according to Phil Mushnick of the N.Y. POST. The letter reads in part: "The union has a duty to afford fair and equal representation of all members of the union. This duty has been breached by the union's insistence upon a scheme of drug testing for steroids and performance enhancement substances that demonstrably protects those using these substances rather than those not using them. ... The union is artificially rigging the workplace, through a fatally flawed drug-testing policy, to the competitive disadvantage of the law-abiding players whom the union is not representing in any fashion whatsoever on this issue, and certainly not fairly. This is by itself an unfair labor practice by the union against some of its players as defined by federal law." The letter continued, "The [CBA] is being used as a shield to protect the guilty 10% at the expense of the 90%. ... We believe that there is inappropriate collusion between your two entities in negotiating and then enforcing a drug-testing policy that not only protects the cheaters and punishes the innocent but that also results in keeping from [MLB] minor league players" (N.Y. POST, 3/14). SELIG'S STANCE: Selig, on the issue of steroids in baseball: "You can't have in any sport, in my judgement, people playing by different rules than the other people in their sport. ... We need to clean it up." ESPN's Jim Gray asked Selig, "Don Fehr, appearing in front of the Senate subcommittee, didn't seem to have the same take that you have. How are you going to move this union since it is a collective bargaining agreement?" Selig said he is "not going to rest, frankly, until we have a plan. I feel that strongly about it" ("SportsCenter," ESPN, 3/14). A MORE PERFECT UNION? MLBPA General Counsel Michael Weiner, on media coverage of the drug-testing policy: "Some of the same people who say [MLB's] program has no teeth are the same people who are pointing to clubhouses and, rightly or wrongly, saying players look different this spring. So, in their view, they are effectively saying that the program has indeed changed player conduct. If that's true, isn't that the point of the program?" (L.A. TIMES, 3/14). A's P Barry Zito, on the MLBPA: "The major thing is that we can't have any dissension. Even if it's only on one issue, once the union shows there's a split, ownership will only try to go further" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 3/14). Cardinals P Jason Simontacchi, on the Cardinals players' meeting with Fehr on Friday: "They reiterated about the policy that is in place right now and that we're going to just go through with it and trust it" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 3/14).
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