Episode 15 - Getting Dangerously Pro-Labor With the Guy Who Unionized Baseball’s Minor Leagues

Harry Marino—former minor league pitcher, former attorney at D.C.’s elite of the elite, Williams & Connolly LLP, and co-captain with yours truly of the Men’s Gold team for the 34th Annual UVA Law Softball Invitational held in 2017 (trust me—between 0.3 to 1.6 times cooler than it sounds)—is one cool dude.

In Harry’s first season in the minors, he made $3,300. That stuck with him. Eight years later, in 2020, he left Williams & Connolly to become the executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers. After two years of organizing, he helped minor league baseball players form a union and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that more than doubled pay for all players and guaranteed free housing, meals, transportation, and other benefits. Those improvements matter to me—I have two cousins playing professional baseball, and they are direct beneficiaries of Harry’s work.

Since that point, Harry’s aim has expanded. He founded Sports Solidarity, which, among what can currently be made public, is currently working on negotiations for the players in Dwayne Johnson’s United Football League, and continues to look for other industries where workers may benefit from collective bargaining.

Harry and I spoke on April 3rd about his experience organizing the minors and where things should go from here.

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