Legislator renounces her co-sponsorship of bill to deny minimum wage to minor league ballplayers

In a flip-flop monumental even by Washington standards, a legislator who introduced a bill to restrict the wages of minor league baseball players has now renounced her support and declared that minor leaguers should be paid “a fair wage for the work they do.”

On Wednesday, a press release from Minor League Baseball trumpeted Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) as one of two sponsors of a bill that would have prevented minor leaguers from the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Whether those requirements should apply to minor leaguers is at the heart of a two-year legal battle. The baseball industry has argued minor leaguers should be exempt under the law, as seasonal employees and de facto apprentices. However, rather than letting the court fight play out, the baseball industry leaned on Congress to try to rewrite the law in the sports management’s favor.

In its press release Wednesday, Minor League Baseball made the remarkable claim that forcing major league teams to pay their minor league players under the law could drive up the cost of business so much that MLB – with more than $9 billion per year in revenue – would respond with cost-cutting measures that could put minor league teams out of business.

On Thursday, Bustos withdrew her support from the bill she had introduced.

“While it’s important to sustain minor league baseball teams that provide economic support to small communities across America, I cannot support legislation that does so at the expense of the players that draw us to stadiums,” she said in a statement.

She added: “Whether it’s on the factory floor, in classrooms or on the playing fields of one of America’s revered traditions, I strongly support raising the minimum wage and the right to collective bargaining for fair wages, and I believe that Major League Baseball can and should pay young, passionate minor league players a fair wage for the work they do.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

Twitter: @BillShaikin