Curb on Baseball Antitrust Exemption Is OKd by Panel : Labor: Senate bill would allow players to sue owners to challenge any unilateral changes in work conditions.

Moving to significantly scale back baseball’s controversial exemption from antitrust laws, a key Senate committee Thursday approved a bill that would allow players for the first time to take owners to court over certain work-related disputes, such as a unilaterally imposed salary cap.

On a 9-8 vote, the Judiciary Committee sent the measure to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate.

The bill, in effect “declares that major league baseball can no longer operate above the law,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). “[And] . . . Congress will be doing its part in helping ensure that baseball fans, cities, vendors and the country do not have to suffer through another extended work stoppage.”

Several senators voted for the bill despite deep reservations, including their uncertainty over its effects on increasingly popular minor league baseball.

The bipartisan bill, written by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the committee chairman, incorporates features from competing approaches that previously had divided even advocates of ending baseball’s 73-year-old antitrust exemption.

Under Hatch’s bill, termination of the exemption would not affect the minor leagues, the amateur draft or the owners’ ability to make collective decisions on franchise relocation or their ability to negotiate collectively and share revenue from television rights.

However, Hatch and other critics of the exemption--granted in 1922 by a now-widely criticized U.S. Supreme Court ruling--contend that it has given owners an unfair bargaining advantage over the players. The proposed bill would basically affect only labor relations and allow the players’ union to sue in federal court to block unilaterally implemented changes in work conditions.

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“This is about workers’ rights,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “It’s time to take action.”

Hatch said the bill would “contribute to constructive labor relations between players and owners and will subject major league baseball to the same treatment under the nation’s laws that other professional sports experience.”

He also argued that his bill does not represent the imposition of a “big government solution” to baseball’s never-ending labor problems.

Rather, Hatch said, his bill would “get government out of the way by eliminating a serious, government-made obstacle to resolution of the labor difficulties in baseball.”

Hatch was referring to the 1922 Supreme Court ruling, which held that professional baseball was not a business engaged in interstate commerce and therefore was immune from antitrust laws.

In another decision 50 years later, the same court called that immunity an “aberration” and urged Congress to remedy matters.

Since then, however, team owners have repeatedly beat back attempts to do so.

But baseball’s recent labor strife--there is still no collective bargaining agreement despite an eight-month strike by the Major League Baseball Players Assn. that began last Aug. 12 and forced the cancellation of the World Series--and the ongoing refusal of owners to select a commissioner have clearly reinvigorated congressional resolve to revisit the issue.

If baseball never had an antitrust exemption and sought one today, it would not get “four votes” in the entire Congress, Leahy said.

And Hatch said Thursday as he convened his committee: “A limited repeal . . . is now in order. The immunity has distorted labor relations in major league baseball and has sheltered baseball from the market forces that have allowed the other professional sports, such as football and basketball, to thrive.”

Hatch also disputed a claim by critics, including acting commissioner Bud Selig, who warn that a limited repeal of the antitrust exemption would lead to a “flood” of litigation.

“If any litigation is created,” Hatch said, “it will probably be concentrated in only a few test cases.”

Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, said in a statement Thursday: “The game of baseball was not positively served by the Senate committee today. The legislation recommended for consideration does not substitute for a negotiated settlement between the players’ union and clubs nor does it encourage the process of negotiation.

“The legislation would only open the floodgates for more litigation in the sport and could negatively impact the accessibility of the game to major and minor league cities. We are confident that the full Senate will see the wisdom of our arguments.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agreed.

Noting that California has five major league teams--more than any other state--Feinstein said: “I don’t believe [baseball] is Coca-Cola or Miller’s or GE or Proctor & Gamble. . . . I don’t understand why the Senate feels it’s necessary to stick its oar into [professional baseball].

“To do this at a time when major league baseball is hurting is a terrible mistake.”

Donald Fehr, executive director of the players’ union, hailed the committee vote, saying the exemption has permitted owners to operate as an unregulated monopoly and that baseball should be governed by the same rules by which other professional sports are.

Fehr said that if baseball is going to renew its bond with the fans and remain the national pastime, it needs a long-term labor agreement and a strong, independent commissioner.

“Removing the antitrust exemption is a significant push in the right direction,” he said.

The drive to cut back the exemption has created an odd alliance of some conservatives, who believe baseball should not have special exemption, and some liberals, who tend to side with workers in labor disputes.

On the other hand, there are also conservatives who are philosophically opposed to government intervention in strikes. And some liberals, such as Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), who are strongly opposed to lifting the exemption for other reasons. Simon said it was “unwise to interject ourselves into a battle of millionaires. I really think we have better things to do.”

“It angers me that we are worrying about baseball while America is going to hell in a handbasket,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who voted against the bill. He also said he didn’t think either the players or the owners “give a damn” about the game.

There have been no formal negotiations since March 30. However, lawyers for the two sides are scheduled to resume talks Monday and Tuesday, probably in New York. Fehr said the talks would “not be at the level we would like,” but “at least we will be back to talking about collective bargaining issues.”

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill similar to the Hatch bill last year but it did not reach the floor. The Senate is not expected to take up the new bill until after its August recess.