Barry Bloom at Sportico reports the Major League Baseball Players Association is fully expecting to be locked out by Major League Baseball during next year's negotiations on a new agreement. "Unless I am mistaken the league has come out and said there's going to be a work stoppage," Tony Clark, the Union's Executive Director told few members of the media after meeting with the San Francisco Giants Players at Scottsdale Stadium. "So, I don't think I'm speaking out of school in that regard." Clark said he's basing that opinion on recent rhetoric from Commissioner Rob Manfred, who told The Athletic in January that off-season lockouts are not necessarily a bad thing. "In a bizarre way, it's actually a positive," Manfred said. "The great thing about off-season lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties." An off-season lockout, which occurred in 2021 during the negotiations that preceded the current five-year basic agreement, is preferable to losing games in season as baseball did during Player Strikes that tore apart the 1981 and 1994-95 seasons. 

To Read This Labor News Report In Its Entirety, Go To: MLB Union Fully Expects a Lockout in Next Contract Negotiations