BASEBALL LABOR : Settlement Not Likely This Week

Special mediator William J. Usery resumed baseball’s labor talks in Leesburg, Va., Monday, but sources said there is no hope for a negotiated settlement before the owners meet in Chicago next Monday to vote on unilateral implementation of their salary cap proposal.

It had been speculated that the players union would offer a counter-proposal to the tax concept introduced by the owners on Nov. 15 during the current meetings in Virginia, but sources familiar with the union’s thinking said that the counter proposal will not be made until the executive board has reviewed it during a meeting in Atlanta next Monday.

What that means is this: By the time there is any meaningful negotiation on the tax concept, the owners will have declared a bargaining impasse and implemented a system that will place a cap on payrolls, eliminate the process of salary arbitration and give players with four and five years of major league service restricted free agency, among other new cost controls.

Some call it the doomsday scenario, since implementation is certain to create a legal quagmire in which the union, claiming there was no impasse and that the owners failed to negotiate in good faith, will seek injunctive relief through the National Labor Relations Board and/or courts in Philadelphia and Florida, where the owners’ antitrust exemption has been significantly narrowed by previous rulings. The union will also resume its strike next spring if there is no settlement, threatening the 1995 season.

“In my estimation, the owners will definitely implement in their Chicago meeting,” union lawyer Eugene Orza said. “That’s where this has been headed from the start.”

The union has notified players by memo to expect implementation and advised agents to conduct 1995 contract negotiations on the premise that the salary cap parameters will be in place Monday.

“That’s how sure we are of implementation,” a veteran agent said Monday. “No one likes it, but we’re almost into December and we’ve got to move forward (with contract negotiations). We know now there isn’t going to be (salary) arbitration this time around, and we’re going to be dealing with new free agency rules.”

The owners have set Dec. 5 as the deadline for imposing the new system because Dec. 7 is the deadline for clubs to offer arbitration to their current free agents, a process that will be eliminated under the cap.

In preparation for an ongoing labor dispute, it was learned that the owners are considering a fan survey on the use of replacement players in 1995.