Owners’ Main Weapon Hasn’t Been Unsheathed : Baseball: If a legal impasse in negotiations is declared after the season, the players could be be replaced.

Tom Geoghegan, a Chicago labor expert who extols the virtues of unionism, posed an interesting question recently:

Without Frank Thomas or Ozzie Guillen, can there be the White Sox?

“They can put together another team, but suppose Frank and Ozzie go across the street and somebody wants to set up the Green Sox?” Geoghegan said. “Who do you want to go see, Frank Thomas or some bush leaguer?”

Who, indeed.

The idea of replacement players might seem far-fetched, but with the baseball strike in its eighth day and counting, some see it coming to that.

That’s because the Major League Baseball Players Assn. is bracing for the day the owners declare a legal impasse, or collective-bargaining deadlock. Put simply, management could declare further negotiations pointless and impose its last best offer unilaterally sometime after the season ends in October.

It is an economic weapon afforded management by the National Labor Act, and if used effectively, could break union solidarity.

“They are trying to get people to cross the picket line,” Geoghegan said.

The simple threat of an impasse caused the players to set the strike deadline this month, when they had the most leverage, said Lauren Rich, assistant general counsel of the players union.

The clubs usually make most of their money at the end of the season, when fan interest is piqued by the pennant races.

“If they don’t strike by trying to get an agreement acceptable to them, then they are forced to live under unilateral conditions once the season ends,” Rich said of the players.

They might have to play under such conditions anyway, but at least by striking they used their most potent weapon to counter the owners’ proposed salary cap.

Richard Ravitch, the owners’ chief negotiator, dismissed the idea that the owners might declare an impasse. He said that although the law allows management to implement its last best offer once a stalemate is reached, it cannot impose those conditions on employees.

“The union tells the public that we have the right to impose as if we can put the salary cap in without their consent,” he said. “We can’t do that. An implementation . . . only means we have the right to offer to play under our last best offer. And they don’t have to take it.”

The disagreement over the impasse illustrates the fissure that has separated the parties.

Some in the players’ circle say the owners plotted this course more than a year ago, when devising the salary cap, a proposal modeled after the NBA’s to curb the escalating salaries of individuals in an effort to spread the wealth uniformly. Knowing the players would not give up lucrative contracts, the argument goes, the owners forced a showdown that would lead to a bargaining impasse.

As evidence, they say, it took the owners 18 months to devise a salary cap, leaving them perhaps only three months to declare a legal impasse.

When players talked about striking a year ago, the owners agreed not to unilaterally implement as long as players did not strike, Rich said. This time, the owners refused to make that pledge.

“That’s why players are on strike today,” she said. “The players viewed that as no choice at all.”

Ravitch said he never made such a promise.

“The commitment I made was that we would not lock out or do anything during this year’s baseball season,” he said.

If the dispute is not resolved by October, Ravitch said, he was unsure whether the negotiations will have reached an impasse.

“I don’t know what I will do,” he said. “I’m not saying I would implement. I am saying I won’t give up the right to.”

Countered Rich: “When they won’t promise they won’t, we have to assume they will.”

But if that is true, the owners are taking a risk. Their product is the work force, one that cannot easily be altered without damaging the game’s integrity.

So, the owners must tread carefully. But so must the players. If an impasse is declared, the players’ options are limited. They can continue to strike, but striking during the off-season means nothing. They can strike during spring training or the first months of the 1995 season, but it would have little financial impact on the owners.

Or they could try to fight the impasse by filing a claim of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board. The players would ask the board to stop the owners from implementing it through an injunction until the collective-bargaining agreement is reached.

To get a favorable ruling, the players must prove the owners negotiated in bad faith. Jerry Hunter, general counsel of the NLRB for the Bush Administration, said only 30% of the claims during his tenure were considered meritorious. Of those claims, the board settled 93% without going before an administrative law judge to get a ruling.

Here’s what the players might claim:

--The owners used delaying tactics by spending 18 months to come up with a proposal and then declared an impasse after three or four months of negotiations.

--The salary cap was an unreasonable bargaining demand because it was so far beyond anything in any previous contract.

--The owners failed to designate an agent with sufficient bargaining authority. Don Fehr, executive director of the union, has claimed Ravitch does not have the power to do anything except present the salary-cap proposal.

The NLRB’s regional office in New York would most likely handle the case because the disputing parties are located there. But most labor law experts consider the players’ arguments weak.

“It’s pretty hard to prove (bad faith), especially with the recent history of the labor board,” said Steve Schlossberg, former Labor undersecretary. “Bad faith means you proposed something so ridiculous that it offends, and the (owners) haven’t been quite that bad.”

Ravitch is not concerned.

“Without the slightest hesitancy whatsoever, I can tell you we can withstand the scrutiny of any unfair-labor-practice charge,” he said.

Once the dispute lands in the purview of the NLRB, it can take months, even years, to be concluded. If a regional director agrees with a charge of unfair labor practices, the case will be heard by an administrative law judge. It could take two years for a decision unless the parties settle outside of court. With the appeals process, it could take another five to seven years.

“This is just not something anyone has the stomach for on this side,” Rich said. “We already spent five years getting $280 million from the (owners on collusion findings). We don’t want to go through that again.”