Labor Talks Take a Turn for Worse

Baseball labor talks took a negative turn Saturday as management blasted players for making what it considered regressive proposals on the core economic issues of revenue sharing and a payroll tax, seemingly putting the sport on the brink of another work stoppage with a strike deadline in only five days.

The gap widened between owners and the Major League Baseball Players Assn. as Rob Manfred, management’s lead labor lawyer, accused the union of “raw, regressive bargaining” for proposing that increased revenue sharing be phased in during the length of the next agreement. That’s unacceptable for owners, who want the plan to be fully implemented next season in an attempt to slow salary growth.

“We could not have been more disappointed in the proposal,” Manfred said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. When you get a proposal like this ... [it] was so out of the realm of expectation that it’s going to take us a little time [to respond].”

Union head Don Fehr expressed confusion about the owners’ position, and continued to jab at Manfred for his negotiating strategy, saying players made a significant step toward the owners in their latest offer. The union, trying to protect high-revenue clubs that drive the market, is strongly opposed to the entire increase beginning next season, but disputed the owners’ contention that the concept of phase-ins was dropped on them unexpectedly.

“Whoever the bar owner was in ‘Casablanca,’ ” Fehr said, “was shocked to find gambling, too.”

Manfred and Fehr slammed each other in dueling conference calls with reporters, escalating a battle that could result in baseball’s ninth work stoppage since 1972. Negotiators are scheduled to meet today in hopes of completing a deal before players strike Aug. 30, but there are other hurdles too.

The sides remain apart on drug testing (owners are seeking a tougher plan than the union has offered) and the format of a worldwide draft. Now, it appears talks might again stall on the key issues as the deadline approaches, raising the stakes in a high-priced poker game stirring tension throughout the major leagues.

“We wouldn’t be here trying to figure out how to move this forward if we thought it was hopeless,” Manfred said. “Having said that, this did not help.”

Owners have proposed transferring $268 million from high-revenue to low-revenue teams next year, an increase of more than $100 million from the existing revenue-sharing formula based on 2001 figures. The union has offered transfers of $172.3 million in 2003, $195.6 million in 2004, $219 million in 2005 and $242.3 million in 2006, meaning the sides are close in the final year of the proposed deal.

Clubs would share 33.3% of local revenue, up from 20% under the current deal, under the union plan. Fehr said players had previously been at 31% and owners at 37%, adding that the union adopted management’s method of redistributing revenue to favor middle-of-the-pack teams. Moreover, Fehr said the sides had discussed phase-ins for more than a year.

“The parties have discussed for a long time that when agreements are eventually reached, changes will have to be phased in over time,” he said. “They clearly understand this would be phased in. Therefore, I am at a loss to explain what this is all about.”

Not so fast, Manfred said.

“They had mentioned the concept of phase-ins a couple of times in the last week or so,” he said. “But nobody had ever given us any reason to believe that the phase-in concept meant we were essentially going to stay flat on revenue sharing for a year, or that we’d never get to the full transfer value until year four of the contract.

“There was never, ever, ever a phase-in proposal discussed until [Saturday]. What went on [last year] is ancient history by the time these talks got going.”

The union also infuriated owners by moving only $5 million toward their tax threshold in each season.

Owners want to tax the portions of 40-man payrolls over $102 million, and players have proposed thresholds of $125 million in 2003, $135 million in 2004 and $145 million in 2005. The union’s previous offer included thresholds of $5 million more in each season. Based on projections, the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers are the only clubs that would be affected by the tax under the union plan.

Players have proposed tax rates of 15% to 40%; owners want 37.5% to 50%. Owners also are upset players are fighting against a tax in 2006, the final year of the deal.

“If they had made any sort of move that was in our direction we would have made a countermove already,” Manfred said. “The thing we’re dealing with is how to respond to a move that went the wrong way.”

Manfred, who had characterized negotiations with optimism until recently, needled Fehr for giving a “20-minute monologue” before the proposal on “Don’s view of the world.” A high-ranking baseball official also took exception to what he considered especially arrogant parts of Fehr’s proposal, including that the union participate in monitoring how clubs spend their revenue-sharing money and that tax proceeds go to the union. The union wants authority to sanction clubs that it believes are not spending enough to improve.

“Don had one of his quotes that I’ve come to know and love out there [recently],” Manfred said. “Somebody asked him how we were going to get to an agreement, and his answer was that Rob knows what he needs to do. My answer to that is apparently Don doesn’t know what he needs to do.”