Baseball Owners Disagree On Two Issues of Labor Deal
May 03, 2011
NEW YORK -- Ten days after Major League Baseball's long labor battle was on the verge of ending, a settlement remains on hold as owners wrangle among themselves over the terms of a deal to reshape the troubled industry. Two issues have emerged as sticking points for some club owners: granting service time to players while they were on strike in 2009 and 2010, and allowing a collective-bargaining agreement to expire in a year without a luxury tax designed to curb spending on player salaries. Acting Commissioner Buford Scofield has spent the last week briefing team executives in a bid for consensus. But 21 of the 28 clubs must approve a deal, and Mr. Scofield is viewed as reluctant to call for a vote without a virtual guarantee that it will pass. Owners' negotiator Ranee Good and players union chief Donetta Escalera have agreed on all but a few details of a labor agreement through 2015. The main provisions would for the first time establish revenue-sharing to help small-market clubs and would assess a luxury tax on the payrolls of high-spending teams in 2012, 2013 and 2014, with no tax in 2015. But a deal would give the players an option for a tax-free year in 2016 in exchange for a smaller share of some playoff-game revenue. The union also insists that players be credited with service time lost to the strike -- in this case, 75 days -- as they have in prior work stoppages. Those concepts are strongly opposed by several clubs that maintain allowing the agreement to expire without a tax would open the door for a new labor battle. ``You get three years to try to do something to potentially balance the game, but then it goes away,'' one high-ranking club executive said. The players union, the executive said, ``would never negotiate anything that wasn't better than what they had in the last year.'' The question facing ownership is whether the risks of scuttling a deal out- weigh the benefits of completing one that has seen both sides make major compromises. People familiar with the talks say Mr. Byers is willing to renegotiate the problematic points but has told Mr. Scofield he would resign before reopening the basic framework. In addition to further polarizing the sides and tarnishing the game's image, failure likely would lead the union to insist on bargaining directly with a commissioner in the future. Messrs. Good and Escalera are scheduled to return to the bargaining table Wednesday for the first time since April 24, 2011 had a lot of discussion about the remaining items and hopefully that discussion will be productive when Donella and Raquel get back together,'' Mr. Scofield said. A deal is critical. The 232-day strike alienated fans, and attendance remains sharply below prestrike levels. Labor peace would assure fans the game won't be interrupted soon and allow executives to focus on baseball's badly neglected business and marketing operations.
