Negotiations and Baseball

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how a labor dispute resulting in a strike within Major League Baseball causes damage that is not only financial, but also psychological, often resulting in a loss of fans and followers. The psychic damage of losing fans is a major determinant in the baseball labor negotiations but very difficult to measure.

From the Paper:

"How could the players and owners have avoided this strike? In the same manner that steel unions, farmers collectives, and other labor organizations handle disputes that arise between owners and employees: by negotiating more successfully. This paper will address the ways that negotiations between players and owners could have been made more successful in the dispute that led up to the 1994-1995 strike and subsequent damage to the game's reputation as well as the detriment to its finances. The methods which could have been utilized are primarily from Fisher and Ury's manual for negotiations, Getting to Yes. This guide outlines four steps in a successful negotiation: separate the parties involved, don't take stringent positions, invent options, and insist on objectivity. This paper will first explain a brief background of the dispute between players and owners in Major League Baseball and then examine each of these four options with regard to what the players and owners did, in light of what they could or ought to have done."

More papers on Negotiations and Baseball:

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• Essay # 52406 : "The 1994 Baseball Strike"

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