On September 9, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that it will voluntarily recognize the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) as the bargaining representative for minor league players. The announcement — a landmark win for labor — came just weeks after the union sent out authorization cards to over five thousand minor league players, which a significant majority quickly signed.

While minor league unionization is suddenly moving rapidly, the effort has been a long time coming. Minor leaguers have been playing without a union for over one hundred years, and only over the last few years has the cause gained momentum, with dugout-to-dugout player organizing and elected officials like Bernie Sanders pressuring the MLB to improve working conditions.

Jacobin contributor Michael Arria spoke with Simon Rosenblum-Larson, a former player in the Tampa Bay Rays system and the cofounder of More Than Baseball, an organization involved in the unionization effort, about how minor leaguers won their fight, what collective bargaining will look like going forward, and what other groups of workers can learn from their impressive victory.