This article appears in the February 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Read more from the issue.

When you make it to the minor leagues and can officially call yourself a professional baseball player, you are often told how lucky you are. How so many other players would kill to be in your shoes. How you can be replaced at the drop of a hat if you make too much trouble.

Perhaps as a result, for decades, minor league players endured a shocking amount of labor exploitation at the hands of their teams and the league. That changed in 2023, when players secured a union contract that guaranteed basic workplace protections, pay raises, and a more secure lifestyle. Their effort can serve as a template for other entry-level players as they seek safer, more equitable workplaces.

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The labor wins of 2023 came about, at least in part, because of COVID. As the country shut down and gate receipts lagged, Major League Baseball (MLB) decided to cancel the minor league season prematurely, even while the majors continued playing. That decision left thousands of players out of a job overnight.

After that, MLB announced that it would cut 43 minor league teams from affiliation. The Appalachian League, with ten teams across the region, had their last affiliated season in 2019. A number of teams folded soon after, with those remaining becoming collegiate summer teams, ending a tradition that had existed, on and off, since 1911.

MLB argued that the measure was necessary to pay players more and align teams more closely with affiliates in the majors. But the cuts not only hurt baseball’s talent pipeline by slashing the number of open roster spots; they also took away a source of pride for many small towns and rural areas. Minor league teams are developmental leagues for both players and fans, drawing them into the world of professional baseball. (They also have some of the sport’s best mascots—the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Vibes, which played in Colorado Springs, had a flaming s’more as its logo.)

Even before COVID hit, minor leaguers were getting restless. In 2014, three retired players—first baseman and outfielder Aaron Senne, infielder Michael Liberto, and pitcher Oliver Odle—filed a lawsuit against MLB, alleging that the organization had violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state minimum-wage and overtime requirements. The suit was settled in 2022, with MLB agreeing to pay $185 million to some 24,000 eligible players.

Before settling, MLB spent millions lobbying for a law that would get them off the hook for paying players fairly. In 2018, lawmakers inserted the Save America’s Pastime Act into a 2,232-page omnibus bill, insulating MLB from lawsuits by excluding most players from the protections of the FLSA, including minimum wages. The bill passed and President Trump signed it into law.

By that time, many minor league players made less than $12,000 a year, all while working 50- to 60-hour weeks of physically demanding work. In the offseason, some players took backbreaking jobs to scrape by.

“You look at your first paycheck and it’s like $400 and you start thinking, how am I going to pay for everything?” said Garrett Broshuis, a former minor league baseball player and lawyer who helped lead the unionization effort.

Broshuis traveled with one player who started skipping lunch because he had racked up too much credit card debt. “He literally couldn’t afford to live,” he said.

During the season, they weren’t given secure, comfortable housing. Some players lived with host families—local baseball fans who gave players a spare bed to sleep in. While it sounds sweet and nostalgic, it often meant sleeping in an away-at-college kid’s room and waking up to strangers each morning. As COVID began, the host-family arrangement was scrapped, and teams arranged for hotel rooms. But often, players had to pick up the bill themselves.

The struggles ballplayers faced were amplified for those born outside of the U.S., who make up nearly 30 percent of the minor leagues. “I started looking around at my Dominican teammates, my Venezuelan teammates,” Broshuis said. “A lot of them came from very little, and out of that paycheck that’s a couple hundred [dollars], they’re trying to save a little money to send back to families counting on them.”

Most international players are Latin American, and come from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Cuba. Many don’t have the stability of citizenship. “They’re still trying to make it into the majors, so they’re going to be reluctant to speak out,” said Peter Dreier, a professor at Occidental College and the author of Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles Over Workers’ Rights and American Empire. Even at the major league level, many Latin American members of the Los Angeles Dodgers remained silent when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used the team’s stadium lot as a staging area. Even though these players have visas, Dreier said, they still feel pressure to avoid taking positions on political issues.

The COVID crisis opened up space for player conversations about workplace protections and collective power. A handful of ex-players helped current players navigate this tumultuous period, careful not to mention unionizing outright. But they worked with players to get unemployment benefits and helped them submit complaints about unsafe housing. Those conversations gradually grew into more focused discussions. Players spoke to their teammates, joined Zoom calls, and started seriously considering a union.

Once there was a critical mass, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the MLB players’ union since 1966, backed their effort. In 2023, an official vote was held, and minor league players got their union. After negotiations on a first contract, a whopping 99 percent of players who cast a ballot voted to ratify the deal.

The agreement, which covers players until 2027, changed the game. Baseline salaries more than doubled for all minor leaguers. Transportation and housing issues were ironed out, ensuring that players would have rides to and from games and a place to sleep at night. Everyone got access to a new 401(k) plan. Crucially, players also won the right to profit off of their names, images, and likenesses, opening up new potential revenue streams.

There’s some hope that the success of minor league baseball collective bargaining can serve as a template for other professional athletes who face low pay or unfair treatment. “Success breeds further success,” said Broshuis. The WNBA, whose collective-bargaining agreement has expired amid significant frustration with low pay and a failure to receive an adequate share of overall revenues, is one clear possibility.

Moving forward, Dreier hopes that unionized minor league ballplayers see themselves as members of the broader labor movement—in sports and outside of them. “I’d like to see the Players Association and the players be more outspoken in support of other unions, like saying something in support of the Amazon or Starbucks workers organizing campaigns, or in support of workers on strike,” he suggested. Dreier hopes that if the union steps up its political engagement, players will too, building solidarity across the workforce.

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This article appears in Feb 2026 Issue.

Emma Janssen is a writing fellow at The American Prospect, where she reports on anti-poverty policy, health, and political power. Before joining the Prospect, she was at UChicago studying political philosophy, editing for The Chicago Maroon, and freelancing for the Hyde Park Herald.