NLRB Meets Today to Consider Injunction

William Gould, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, said Saturday that his agency’s five-member board would meet today to consider general counsel Fred Feinstein’s request to seek an injunction forcing the baseball owners to reinstate the terms of the expired bargaining agreement.

The players’ union has said it will end the strike that began on Aug. 12 if the board obtains an injunction, but the owners may respond by appealing an injunction ruling and instituting a lockout, providing 21 of the 28 clubs approve.

“I think we’ll get this tied down one way or the other,” Gould said of the unusual Sunday meeting and the likelihood that the board will give Feinstein permission to pursue the injunction in federal district court.

The board was scheduled to vote on the request Thursday but delayed that meeting at the urging of special mediator William J. Usery, who hoped to resume bargaining talks over the weekend and feared that the injunction issue would derail the negotiating process.

Usery, however, has been unable to bring the sides together. With the replacement season scheduled to start a week from tonight, the earliest talks will resume is Monday.

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig said Saturday that he has been in phone contact with union leader Donald Fehr, but sources on both sides believe Selig is stalling in the hope striking players will begin returning to their clubs in the week before the season opens.