WASHINGTON — The Chicago Cubs opened the 2015 season Sunday night with a 3-0 loss against the St. Louis Cardinals, and one glaring absence: Kris Bryant, the team’s budding superstar. The Cubs sent Bryant down to the minor leagues last week, setting off a 21st-century-style labor dispute.

To the Major League Baseball Players Association, the move looked to be less about baseball aptitude than money and control: Bryant, 23, who plays third base, had been having a preposterously good spring training, hitting nine home runs and notching a .425 batting average. But if he remained in Triple-A for at least 12 days, it would push back by one year the date on which he would qualify for free agency, allowing the Cubs to buy his services at a potentially steep discount for an extra season.

On one level, it is hard to feel sympathy for a baseball prodigy who could well be making $25 million a year in the near future, whether that day arrives in 2021 or 2022. But the dispute over Kris Bryant highlights something that runs deeper across a number of industries: the degree of solidarity between the stars and everyone else may be the key to the future of labor relations.

The players’ union complained that Bryant could have been one of the game’s greatest players and the Cubs “still would have made the decision they made.”