Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Federal Court: No Discrimination in Negro Leagues Pension

In 1981, major league baseball players went on strike for 50 days, causing 713 games to be cancelled. The primary issue for the work stoppage was a debate over free agency (specifically, whether clubs would be compensated -- in the form of a draft pick -- for losing a star free agent) but a big win for the players in negotiations was the plan for the players' medical and pension plans. Before 1981, it took five years of service for a ballplayer to become vested in the medical and pension plans provided by the league. After the strike, the service time needed was shortened to one day (!) for the medical plan and 43 days for the pension plan. The change only affected players that retired in 1980 or later, though. Any player who ended his career (voluntarily or otherwise) prior to 1980 remained under the old rules.

In 1993, the league decided to pay a form of reparations to make amends for the color line that was in place prior to 1947. To do so, MLB set up a plan that provided medical coverage for former Negro League players, as well as a supplemental income plan that paid former players $10,000 each year. To qualify for the Negro Leagues Pension, a player must have played one full season in the Negro Leagues prior to 1948 (when integration began) and played at least four years of professional baseball in either the Negro Leagues or in the majors. Thus, a player that played in the Negro Leagues in 1946 and 1947 and in the major leagues in 1948 and 1949 would qualify for the pension. A white player who played from 1946-1949 in the major leagues (or from 1973-1976, etc) would not.

A group of white players filed a class action suit, alleging that this system constituted discrimination by an employer on the basis of race and violated Title VII. The plaintiffs argued that black players could more easily qualify for the pension plans than could white players and that this constituted unlawful discrimination.

The court disagreed. The judges acknowledged the differences between the two plans and that baseball had adopted a more favorable system for Negro League players in an attempt to "repair" some of the damage done by segregation. The key, though, was that the benefits were not awarded "on the basis of an employment relationship." Since the Negro Leagues and MLB were always separate, MLB is not awarding the pension based on a player's employment. To qualify, a player need not have ever played in the majors (i.e., a player could have played 4+ years in the Negro Leagues). Some players will qualify that played in both leagues, but no player could qualify that did not play at least one season in the Negro Leagues. The Negro Leagues pension is not "part and parcel of an employment relationship" but rather a benefit conferred basically out of the goodness of MLB's heart. It cannot be employment discrimination if the benefit is not based on employment, and thus, there is no liability under Title VII.

The law in this case is fairly unremarkable. I suppose one argument made by the plaintiffs was that the Negro Leagues and MLB functioned as one employer pre-1947, but there is really no support for this. I feel bad for the players who played less than five years from 1947-1979 (especially one plaintiff who supposedly missed the five years by a matter of days) but not too bad. After all, they did get to play professional baseball. And there were probably a great deal of players in the Negro Leagues that would have given up any pension (and salary for that matter) to get to play in the majors. For the few that remain alive, the meager pension is likely a case of 'too little, too late.'

The case is Colbern v. Selig, No. 04-55647 (9th Cir. May 9, 2006).

0 comments:

Post a Comment