1981 Major League Baseball strike
| Major League Baseball labor relations |
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| 1972 strike | |
| 1981 strike | |
| 1985 strike | |
| 1990 lockout | |
| 1994-95 strike | |
| Collective Bargaining Agreement | |
The 1981 Major League Baseball strike was the first work stoppage in Major League Baseball since the 1972 Major League Baseball strike that resulted in regular season games being cancelled. Overall, it was the fourth work stoppage since 1972, but actions in 1973, 1976, and 1980 did not result in any regular season games being cancelled. The strike began on June 12 and forced the cancellation of 713 games (or 38 percent of the Major League schedule) in the middle of the regular season. The two sides reached an agreement on July 31, and play resumed on August 9 with the All-Star Game, with regular season play resuming one day later.
An estimated US$146 million was lost in player salaries, ticket sales, broadcast revenues, and concession revenues. The players lost $4 million a week in salaries while the owners suffered a total loss of $72 million.
The Executive Board of the Major League Baseball Players Association voted unanimously to strike on May 29 due to the unresolved issue of free agent compensation. The deadline was extended briefly, however, after the Players' Association's unfair labor complaint was heard by the National Labor Relations Board.
The strike was called in response to the owners wanting to win back the prerogatives over the players. The owners had already lost at the bargaining table and in the courts on the issue of the free agency draft. At issue during the seven-week-long negotiations was the owners demanding compensation for losing a free agent player to another team. The compensation in question was a player who was selected from the signing team's roster (not including 12 "protected" players). The players maintained that any form of compensation would undermine the value of free agency.
Although the strike was called by the players, many sportswriters and even fans placed most of the blame on the owners. Sports Illustrated reflected this particular opinion with the cover headline "Strike! The Walkout the Owners Provoked." One of the reasons the owners doled out such hefty contracts from 1978–1981 (43 players each negotiated contracts worth over $1 million during this period) was because they were afraid of losing disgruntled stars in the free agency reentry draft. So the owners paid their players the so-called new going rate in order to keep them from going elsewhere.
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