DRUG CLAUSE CONTROVERSY : Dodgers’ Action Receives Criticism From Both Sides

Dodgers’ owner Peter O’Malley failed to tell management negotiators in the baseball contract talks what he was going to do, besides violating an agreement between management and the players’ union, when he included a clause calling for mandatory drug tests in contracts given some Dodger players, a high management source said Thursday.

The source--who asked not to be identified--said that management’s chief negotiator, Lee MacPhail, was caught unaware by O’Malley’s action, and that MacPhail believes there was a tacit agreement between the owners and the union leaders last spring that mandatory drug tests would not be brought up again until at least late in the coming season.

That would have pushed the explosive drug-test question beyond this winter’s negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement and thus would have avoided a dispute that could lead to another player strike.

According to the source, O’Malley’s action has not only led to a wider break in the already faltering contract talks but has left management somewhat compromised.

A Dodger spokesman said that neither O’Malley nor any other team official would comment until after management and union representatives meet in New York today to discuss the drug-testing issue raised by O’Malley’s moves.

Leaders of the union, the Major League Players Assn., were publicly incensed over the news that several Dodger players--including Mike Marshall and Bill Russell--have already signed contracts containing the mandatory testing provisions. The union has long opposed mandatory testing as a violation of player rights and privacy.

What was striking was that they found some echo on the management side.

Marvin Miller, the former union leader who remains a key union negotiator, expressed the players’ association point of view:

“I think this kind of ploy by O’Malley, (Al) Campanis and the rest of them is simply a bold, bald PR ploy, saying, ‘We’re more against drugs than you are,’ ” he said. “And this was all resolved satisfactorily in baseball last year in the agreement (for voluntary drug-testing). What they’ve done is rake it up and violate the law in the process.”

Miller said that O’Malley’s move is a direct violation of the terms of last year’s agreement. The management source did not go that far, but he said MacPhail believes it violates a tacit agreement.

Eugene Orza, the union’s associate general counsel, meanwhile, noted that O’Malley is one of four owners on the special negotiating committee created to assist MacPhail in the contract talks for management. He indicated that O’Malley’s position on the committee makes his drug-testing move particularly sensitive since “the basic problem in negotiations is to get people to honor” what they have agreed to.

The man who succeeded Miller as leader of the union, Donald Fehr, headed for a Los Angeles meeting with Dodger players today to discuss the matter. In the meantime, Fehr has broken off regular negotiating with management. Two of his assistants will be meeting with MacPhail today, however, to discuss O’Malley’s moves.

The management source said that according to MacPhail’s understanding, last year’s drug agreement called for a joint review council of three neutral doctors to consider whether mandatory drug-testing was advisable--but only after there had been extensive experience with the agreed-upon voluntary testing during the course of the coming season.

The source said MacPhail knew that O’Malley disagreed about what ought to be done, but he did not know he was going to take any steps toward compulsory testing.

“We thought the voluntary program was coming along well now,” the source said. “There probably wouldn’t be any consideration of mandatory testing until we decided the program wasn’t working.”

Under last year’s agreement, the management source said, if the doctors did recommend mandatory testing and the owners agreed, the union leaders had agreed to take it back to their player members for their opinion but had not agreed to accept it.

“The players are very strong on privacy, Constitutional rights, the First Amendment,” the management source said. “The majority of the players feel the same way, that other people in other jobs aren’t asked to be tested (for drugs). This was the big problem we had in the drug talks last year. We were both anxious to get some agreement, so we put it aside, and agreed on voluntary testing on an individual case-by-case basis.

“The Dodgers were one of the clubs that were very concerned. They wanted mandatory testing right away. O’Malley feels very strongly about this.”

Other baseball officials, including Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers, chairman of the owners’ negotiating committee, would not comment.

Miller said the union is determined that baseball players will not be treated different from people in other professions.

“Do the chief editors of your paper take drug tests?” he asked. “I might like to know if the chief editorial writer has been on something when he writes an editorial. This business of saying a baseball player has so much less need of privacy and rights than anyone else is bull. Are we going to test Secretaries (Caspar) Weinberger and (George) Shultz before they go into the arms talks? It is not appropriate to measure athletes by a different standard than anyone else.”

He added that the union not only questions the test on privacy and Constitutional-rights grounds, but that it feels the reliability of such tests is not proven.

“My understanding is that investigation reveals a great deal of doubt among the experts about the accuracy of these tests,” he said. “There are all kinds of problems, contested lab results, the need for new tests, much suspicion. It’s not worth it.”

Other officials on the labor side saw the immediate issue in terms of management’s willingness to live up to the agreements it has made.

Orza--one of the two union representatives designated by Fehr to meet with management on the matter today--said: “The issue would be the same whether it’s meal allowances or drugs. Drugs have a high public prominence. But whether it’s meal money or drugs, you negotiate an agreement through the collective bargaining process. Then what if the Dodgers announce there will be no roast beef?”

Attorney Dick Moss, who has been present at some negotiating meetings and remains close to the players’ union, said it was apparent to him that what O’Malley has done is “in violation of both the (1981) collective bargaining agreement and the drug agreement.”

“I have no idea why the Dodgers did it,” he said. “It’s the height of arrogance. The most amazing thing is that one of the four owners (on the negotiating committee) is taking the position that he is not going to honor agreements with the players’ association. That’s really scary.”

The 1981 collective bargaining agreement lapsed Dec. 31, and the current contract negotiations are aimed at working out a new agreement. But Miller said Thursday that so far the owners have not proposed altering the standard contract to mandate compulsory drug-testing.

According to last spring’s drug agreement, a signed contract ratified by both the owners and the union, the only mandatory testing allowed would be on players who already had been disciplined for a drug violation and then only during the probationary period.