While labor unions have been hurting over the last 30 years, the Major League Baseball Players Association has been thriving, said Donald Fehr, executive director of the baseball union.
Fehr spoke to about 30 people Monday night at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, calling the union the "most visible, most militant and successful labor organization around."
He spoke for free, said Mike Bowen, Graham Center assistant director.
Fehr said the reasons for the baseball union's success have a lot to do with how different baseball is from other industries.
For one, the game can't be moved overseas to save on costs, he said.
"You can't reproduce tomorrow's baseball game on a field in China," he said.
And the employees, which many industries see as the cost of doing business, are also the sport's product, he said.
Fans are not just watching a game, they're watching specific players, he said, adding the sport's players also can't be replaced.
"They're the best ones in the world," he said. "You can't find any other ones."
As a result, he said, the union is not afraid to strike.
Furthermore, when the players do strike, it doesn't seem to do any long-term damage to the sport, he said.
"Fans come back after (an) interruption," Fehr said.
Since he became executive director of the player's association in the late 1970s, Fehr said annual revenue has increased from about $350 million to about $6.5 billion last year.
Player salaries have increased at a similar pace, he said, jumping from an average of about $50,000 in the 1970s to $3.2 million last year.
In that gap, he said, major league baseball has been shut down by strikes many times.
And reporters tend to cover the strikes like they're sporting events, he said.
"You come out of meetings, and they'd want to know who won today," he said.
Fehr recommended some changes to the bargaining process between employers and unions.
He said both sides need to find a sense of common purpose in order for negotiations to be less adversarial. Employees should have a role in a company's decision-making processes so they are knowledgeable of a company's state of affairs, he added.
He also said companies need to find a way other than through wages to recognize an employee's contribution to a business.
In the question-and-answer session afterward, Fehr touched on the issue of steroids. He said the press made the steroid controversy an issue of drugs or of players having an unfair advantage when, from the union's perspective, it boiled down to the question: "Under what circumstances is it appropriate for your employer to search you?"
"That's what taking your blood or urine is," he said, "it's a search."
