Which is nuts, frankly.
This isn't an industry with tiny margins, where labor demands threaten survival. This is an industry that generates huge revenues, where ownership and "labor" (really talent, which is a bit special) are arguing over specifically how a very large pie is divvied up.
Most labor-management conflicts have to do with trying to balance a needed rate of return to investment (in a competitive market) with sufficient returns to labor to provide a decent living. [Granted, this is a gross simplification, but for purposes of comparison to MLB, I think it'll do.]
This is completely different. This is greed, pure and simple; people on both sides of the table arguing about which group gets to keep how much of the money - when everybody at the table is doing at least quite well, and most - on both sides - are, to be blunt about it, rolling in the dough.
Ownership here isn't accountable to investors, to stockholders. These are private companies, held by small, extremely wealthy ownership groups. They have essentially nothing at risk here.
At the same time, labor isn't fighting to secure a decent living, to "make ends meet," as they say. The entry-level salary in MLB is $780,000. Nobody needs that.
So both sides are simply trying to get "more." Not because either side needs more, but because it's there - monopoly rents - and because they can argue about it.
They see this as a conflict. But really, they're all on the same side. They're extracting large amounts of money from the fan base - tickets, concessions, parking, cable rights (which are funded by monthly cable bills). They're generating more revenue than any of them actually needs to lead a decent life. Economically speaking, they're collecting large monopoly rents. And they're arguing about who gets how much of the windfall.
It's sad, really. But... at the end of the day, they'll find a settlement. Nobody wants to blow up the gravy train. Nobody will be left destitute, or anything remotely like destitute (or even middle class!) as a result of whatever specific compromise they settle on.
It's an entertainment industry. It's unimportant, not life or death to anybody, irrelevant to the real world. And of course, because it is so irrelevant, they'll have a huge fight over it — and then they'll settle, cut up the pie, and all of them will chuckle all the way to the bank.
