A class action lawsuit on behalf of the minor leaguers of all 30 Major League Baseball (MLB) teams is seeking minimum wages plus overtime. As it stands, minor leaguers currently earn a maximum starting salary of $5,500 for toiling from spring to fall.
The case, Senne v. MLB, is scheduled to be heard in September in San Francisco.
“No one is saying that minor leaguers should be getting rich,” says Garrett Broshuis, a minor league baseball player turned attorney who helped build the case. “But if McDonald’s and Wal-Mart can pay a minimum wage, then Major League Baseball can too.”
The minor league minimum salary is $1,100 a month and it maxes out at $2,150 a month. By contrast, major league salaries start at $84,000 a month with no maximum.
So far, MLB has been mum on the lawsuit, but in court documents it denied all charges and said the minor leagues are a seasonal amusement not subject to the wage and overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), much like the operators of summer water slides and Christmas tree lots in the winter.