Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig has announced the appointment of Daniel Halem as Executive Vice President, Labor Relations for Major League Baseball.
“This is another move by Selig to reorganize MLB’s management structure in advance of the commissioner’s impending retirement,” Jordan Kobritz, a former attorney and Minor League Baseball team owner, told Sports Litigation Alert. “It follows on the heels of Rob Manfred’s appointment from Executive VP Economics and League Affairs to COO on September 30.”
Kobritz, who is also chairman of the Sports Management Department at SUNY Cortland, added that Halem “has worked closely with Manfred on labor issues with players and umpires, including negotiations on the CBA and drug related matters. It’s not a stretch to see Halem assuming the role that Manfred has had with Selig when Manfred is elected to succeed Selig as commissioner, which in my view is an inevitability and has been for some time.”
In his new role, MLB said Halem will work “closely with club management officials and helps direct the administration of the revenue sharing system, the debt-service rule, the competitive balance tax, the salary arbitration system and the amateur draft support program, among other projects.”
Selig said he was “pleased to expand Dan’s role with Major League Baseball. Rob, Dan and their team have superbly managed a number of significant initiatives for our industry, and I believe that they will continue to support the work of our clubs with distinction in the future.”
Halem joined MLB after working as a partner in the Labor and Employment Law Department at the New York office of Proskauer, where he represented employers in collective bargaining, arbitration and administrative proceedings as well as in state and federal litigations. As a part of Proskauer’s Sports Law Group, Halem counseled MLB on collective bargaining issues related to its players and umpires and he represented individual clubs in salary arbitration. Halem also represented and counseled the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the New York Jets of the National Football League prior to joining MLB.
Halem graduated from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1988 and from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, in 1991. He grew up in New Jersey and now resides in New York.
Kobritz added that “these personnel moves should remove any doubt that this time he intends to follow through on his promise to step down in January 2015.
“The continuing reorganization of MLB’s central office gives Selig’s appointees an opportunity to get comfortable with their new responsibilities, sort of a dry run if you will, while he is still around to counsel and assist them.”
