Stepping Up to the Plate: Minor Leaguers Attempt to Remedy their Unconscionable Plight

Professional baseball players are often thought of as making multi-million-dollar salaries, but most professional baseball players have recently made under $15,000 a year. Minor league players toiled under an onerous system resulting from baseball's judicially created antitrust exemption and lobbying efforts that exempted them from minimum wage and overtime. These factors allowed teams to impose a uniform player contract (UPC) on players with numerous unconscionable provisions for years. However, a late-night Tweet in August of 2022 sent shockwaves through the sports and labor world, announcing that the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) was sending out authorization cards to represent minor league players. After years of fighting to maintain the authority to impose conditions on minor league players, through lobbying and litigation, Major League Baseball (MLB) turned over a new leaf and recognized the unionization of minor league players under the MLBPA less than three weeks later. In light of this long sought-after recognition, this article takes a novel approach. First, it provides historical context for baseball's unique ability to impose working conditions on minor leaguers without significant concern for legal ramifications. Second, it provides an overview of the doctrine of contractual unconscionability and analyzes the prior UPC as an unconscionable agreement. Finally, it details the historic unionization process and makes detailed recommendations to ameliorate the unconscionable conditions minor league players have faced when they negotiate with MLB owners to draft their initial collective bargaining agreement.     

Harming America: Corporate Crime in a Context of Deregulation

ABSTRACT

Like many Republican presidential candidates before him, Donald J. Trump campaigned on a pro-business, anti-regulation platform, and since his election in November 2016, he has directed his administration to move forward with deregulation in many arenas, including consumer financial protections, environmental controls, and workplace safety among others. Past efforts to roll back regulations governing certain industries, such as the savings and loan and the mortgage industries, have had harmful consequences for the general public or for specific interest groups. In this study, we review what the Trump administration has accomplished with regard to deregulation to date. Then, based on past deregulatory fiascos, we theorize the harmful collateral consequences that may result from this most recent swing of the regulatory-deregulatory pendulum.     

A view from the policy community: a new strategic narrative for Europe?

ABSTRACT

Reflecting on the results presented in articles in this special issue, European leaders should take greater account of external perceptions in crafting the European Union's strategic narrative and guiding its actions. Failure to do so has impaired external policies like the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership. Leaders emerging from the Arab uprisings perceived the EU as complicit with their countries’ former anciens régimes and Russian leaders see EU support for democracy and the market economy in former Soviet states as duplicitous and instrusive. Awareness of such perceptions should be filtered into EU decision-making, without validating views that European officials and diplomats consider misleading.     

Prisons or Problem-Solving: Does the Public Support Specialty Courts?

ABSTRACT

Recently, “problem-solving” courts have been developed as an alternative to imprisonment. They are often called “specialty” courts because they process and divert into treatment programs offenders who are seen as different from the general criminal population, such as those with mental health or drug problems, those who are homeless or veterans, and those who engage in domestic violence. Based on a 2017 national survey of 1,000 respondents, the current study examines overall public support for rehabilitation as a goal of corrections and then focuses specifically on support for different types of specialty courts. The analysis reveals that the American public endorses not only the rehabilitative ideal but also the use of problem-solving courts. Further, with only minimal variation, strong support for these courts appears to exist regardless of political orientation and sociodemographic characteristics.     

The Emperor’s new clothes? Perceptions of the EU’s strategic partnerships in Asia

Asia Europe Journal - In order to adapt to a changing global order, the European Union (EU) has established an important mechanism for cooperating with some of the world’s most influential...     

Acute myoglobinuria as a fatal complication of heroin addiction

A fatal case of myoglobinuria complicating heroin addiction is described. Clinically the patient had no overt symptoms of rhabdomyolysis. Pathologists should be alerted to this rare complication in heroin addicts who die of no apparent cause. The antimyoglobin immunoperoxidase technique is useful in confirming the diagnosis.