Scrooge! MLB owners reportedly want to scrap non-player pensions

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf was reportedly able to stop this plan from taking place a year ago. (Icon SMI) By Cliff Corcoran According to a report by ESPN

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf was reportedly able to stop this plan from taking place a year ago. (Icon SMI)

By Cliff Corcoran

According to a report by ESPN New York's Adam Rubin, Major League Baseball's owners are reviving a plan to eliminate the league's requirement that teams offer defined-benefit pension plans to all of their non-player employees. That plan, which could leave many of those employees without pensions entirely, could take effect with a vote at the owners meetings in New York on May 8 and 9.

Per Rubin, the owners attempted to eliminate that requirement a year ago, but Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, "chastised his bretheren for being petty with the lives of ordinary people given the riches produced by the sport," successfully winning over enough support to get the measure voted down. However, Rubin reports, a majority of the owners are once again in favor of eliminating the pension requirement, which would effect many in front offices, training staffs, minor league staffs and scouting departments, some of whom make less than $40,000 a year in an industry that has experienced annual growth and revenues in excess of $8 billion. The proposed measure would not wipe out existing pension commitments, but would freeze them, preventing further accrual and would not require teams to offer new plans.

eliminate the dental plans