A Dirty Business Just Gets Uglier

I return from a vacation amid the idyllic landscape of Wyoming and Montana only to re-encounter the characteristic chaos of baseball’s labor landscape

As the dirty laundry languishes in my suitcase, a wary union, still believing the owners intend to lock out the players after the World Series and/or unilaterally implement new work rules, is expected to further cloud and confuse the collective bargaining process today, taking a step it delayed taking Monday in the hope that another week of negotiations would put the sides closer to an agreement.

Considering that the eight previous negotiations have all ended in a work stoppage, that common sense is a lost aspect in this process, that the union distrusts the owners and that there are some owners who still believe the union can be broken, what ensued wasn’t unexpected.

Starting Tuesday, there was little movement on the contentious issue of a payroll tax and virtually no negotiation at all.

Thus, although it wasn’t definite, union leaders were leaning Thursday to recommending that its executive board, meeting by phone today, approve an Aug. 30 strike date.

What would that mean--aside from the reality that Shakespeare was centuries ahead of himself when he recommended a plague on both houses?

Well, OK, setting a strike date doesn’t mean it will come down to a strike on that date.

It isn’t pushing the envelope to believe a settlement is still possible.

There is a measure of civility and compromise that was absent in 1994, when the players went out on Aug. 12 and didn’t return for 232 days, and then only because a federal judge found the owners guilty of illegal labor practice.

This time, there is a foundation that wasn’t there in ’94.

The sides have reached agreement on minimum salary and the benefit plan, and the union has made concessions on steroid testing, a worldwide draft and increased revenue sharing. The union is also negotiating on a payroll tax that it philosophically opposes and considers comparable to a salary cap.

All of those positives aside, history suggests, as a lawyer close to the process put it, that “it will probably get uglier before it gets better.”

There are informed people, in fact, who believe that the setting of a strike date is exactly what the owners want, triggering, as one said, the “court of public opinion to descend on a union that has never been intimidated, in a mistaken belief it will pressure the players into giving the owners a better deal.”

In what has been an ongoing poker game by the two sides, these people also contend that Rob Manfred, baseball’s lead lawyer, has studiously prepared for implementation by painting a portrait of good-faith bargaining with his positive comments, and prepared for the legal challenges to implementation by taking care as to what proposal he has on the table and when.

With all of that, Manfred is strictly the front man for Commissioner Bud Selig, who continues to call the shots, hasn’t appeared upset that the union may set a strike date, and remains under the influence, according to sources (and recent accusations by New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner in a New York Times story), of a militant group of small-revenue owners.

They include John Moores of San Diego, David Glass of Kansas City, Drayton McLane of Houston, Carl Pohlad of Minnesota and the re-emerging hawk and puppet master, Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox.

That group, sources said, has been known to conduct its own conference calls, devoid of other owners.

If the players set an Aug. 30 strike date today, will Selig and his kitchen cabinet permit Manfred to negotiate a compromise on the key issue of a luxury tax between now and then?

There is no certainty. The owners initially proposed a 50% tax on all payroll above $98 million. They have since moved to about $100 million, while the union is in the area of $135 million (an area occupied only by the Yankees) at a much lower tax rate. That the union is willing to negotiate a payroll tax at all is a major development and recognition that the owners will not ratify any deal that does not include a salary restraint.

However, the argument over tax rate and threshold produced virtually no meaningful negotiations Wednesday and Thursday, and no talks are scheduled today.

In addition, a lawyer close to the process said the union will not strip the key salary driving clubs, such as the Yankees, Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, of their market rights by agreeing to a debilitating tax on top of their increased revenue sharing burden.

It is inconceivable, of course, that an industry that produces $3.6 billion in revenue can’t find a way to divide it short of a possible work stoppage.

It is inconceivable that it has taken this long, but then Selig spoiled the off-season with his doomed contraction scenario, after he had called off secret and promising (in the union’s view, at least) negotiations last summer when he stripped the respected and conciliatory Paul Beeston, baseball’s since-deposed chief operating officer, of any authority.

Now?

Well, maybe a strike date will pressure the sides into a settlement.

Maybe, despite Fox covering its possible postseason TV losses, enough owners owe enough in stadium debts to bring about a settlement, and enough banks are owed enough to make it clear they won’t tolerate a stoppage.

The mid-August standings, with 17 teams more than 10 games behind, reflect the competitive disparity that management claims needs to be addressed with a new system. However, baseball’s finances remain a murky proposition. Congress reacted to Selig’s financial figures with skepticism, Forbes magazine mocked them and former New York Met co-owner Nelson Doubleday, in a suit since settled, recently accused Selig of doctoring the books to create “phantom losses.” It has been a difficult summer for the commissioner, and now he and his cronies must decide how hard a line they are going to draw on the tax issue.

Beyond that, beyond the risk inherent in another stoppage, he and a union whose membership averages $2.4 million in salary must weigh the fans’ reaction if there is a shutdown amid the nation’s current economic climate, and if that shutdown is still in place on Sept. 11, the first anniversary of the terrorist attack.

It is safe to say that the world has changed since 1994.

When it comes to baseball’s labor landscape, there is little else that can be said safely.