NFL PLAYERS STRIKE: DAY 4 : Both Sides Talking, Nobody’s Moving : Three-Hour Session Settles Nothing, and Next Meeting Is Not Scheduled

Curious why negotiations to end the four-day-old National Football League players’ strike came to a predictable and temporary halt Friday?

The scenario after Gene Upshaw, the union executive director, and Jack Donlan, management’s chief representative, adjourned for an indefinite time:

--Upshaw says he won’t meet the press because, says Frank Woschitz, the union’s public relations director, it’s Donlan’s turn to comment first.

--Donlan says he wasn’t aware of the arrangement and can’t possibly sneak away from his hotel room because he has to call NFL owners.

--”That’s bull . . . ,” Woschitz says.

--Nearly two hours later, Donlan finally relents and addresses reporters at your usual labor update venue, The Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.

--Upshaw arrives about a half-hour later and, like Donlan before him, blurts out what everyone here knew a day ago: No progress. No games. No news.

It may have been the first time Donlan and Upshaw agreed on anything since their arrival Wednesday.

According to both men, their three-hour meeting Friday was cordial enough. They chatted about various issues but never bargained. When it came time to say goodby, Donlan and Upshaw did so without setting a date for Non-Talks Part II. The best guess, said one official involved in the negotiations, is for a Washington get-together sometime late next week.

As usual, Donlan and Upshaw spent considerable time sniping at each other’s positions. It has become their favorite pastime.

Donlan began things by reminding everyone that the union’s first economic proposal came too late and would cost the owners too much, that there would be frozen-food appliances in hell before management discarded its highly successful system of free agency, that there are at least 6-8 weeks of hard negotiating left between him and Upshaw.

“What we have to do is something different,” he said. “What we’re doing here isn’t working.”

And this: “With regard to free agency . . . everybody knows where we are on that position. Their position across the table is that the players are going to be free.”

Meanwhile, Upshaw used his podium time to accuse management of misstating the union’s position. Free agency is no more the key issue than guaranteed contracts or the pension plan or drug testing, he said. And don’t bother asking if the union will continue to strike, he said, the players are committed.

“The reason Donlan wants to break (the talks) off is so he can test the players, to see if the players are really solid in their resolve,” Upshaw said. “I have no doubts about that. Over the next few days, you will see that we’ll be bringing more scabs out than they’re taking in.”

As for the failed negotiations, Upshaw was ready with an explanation.

“We came to bargain, and (management) actually came to leave,” he said.

About the only thing accomplished during the numerous sessions was an understanding that any Collective Bargaining Agreement would coincide with the length of the present NFL television contract, which is three years. Otherwise, said Donlan and Upshaw, there were no new proposals and certainly no breakthroughs on any issue. “We talked positions,” Upshaw said.

Despite the union’s insistence otherwise, it appears that free agency is the reason the strike plods on. An update:

--The NFL Players Assn. still wants a player with four or more years of service to be granted unrestricted free agency at the completion of his contract. A player with fewer than four years of service would be subject to the right of first refusal. It also wants an end to any form of compensation for players.

--Management says it will adjust its compensation guidelines and retain its right of first refusal.

“We’re etched in our position, I can tell you that,” Upshaw said. “If it’s stone or butter.”

Lingering prominently in the background are the remaining topics--guaranteed contracts, pension plans, minimum salaries, drug testing and roster sizes. Donlan and Upshaw bickered about those, too, but with no results.

At day’s end, Donlan took a train back to New York, and Upshaw boarded a plane for Washington. They left without once predicting a quick end to the strike.

They did agree, however, to keep in touch. “I don’t have any problem picking up the phone and calling Gene, just as Gene doesn’t have any problem picking up the phone and calling me,” Donlan said.

The trick is to make it worthwhile.