Owners Make New Proposal As Judge Sets A Friday Hearing, Owners Offer To Play Under Old Rules

A federal judge scheduled a hearing for Friday that could lead to the end of the baseball strike, and owners made a new proposal that moved toward the union’s position.

U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was assigned the case Monday, could issue a preliminary injunction that would end the 7-month strike mere hours before the season is set to start Sunday.

Shortly after Sotomayor held a 30-minute scheduling session, players and owners returned to the bargaining table for the first time since March 4. Management offered a six-year deal in which the sides would play 1995 under the old rules.

Starting next year, the portions of payrolls above $44 million, or 108 percent of the average, would be subject to a 50 percent luxury tax. That’s $3.3 million, or 8 percent, more than the owners’ previous proposal.

Owners, using many of the recommendations mediator W.J. Usery made last month, also offered to either keep the current system of salary arbitration and free agency, or eliminate arbitration and lower the threshold for unrestricted free agency from six years to four.

In their last offer, owners wanted to eliminate arbitration in exchange for restricted free agency for those with four to six years of service.

“This offer has to be accepted by this weekend,” acting commissioner Bud Selig said.

The union’s last proposal was for a tax of 25 percent on the portions of payrolls above 133 of the average, or $54.1 million.

“I would say to you after a lot of agonizing, that this proposal is much less than the clubs hoped to achieve,” Selig said. “But the clubs recognize that we are at the point in this dispute where both sides must swallow hard to make an agreement.”

Union officials didn’t hold a news conference. However, some on the players’ side were disappointed Selig said during the meeting the offer was as far as management could move. Others thought that was just a normal bargaining posture.

“I’ll get back to Bud tomorrow,” union head Donald Fehr said.

While the owners’ previous tax threshold would have affected 15 teams in 1994, the new plan would have affected 11. The Detroit Tigers, who would have paid a high tax of $8 million in 1994 under the last plan, would have paid $6.4 under this plan. The total raised by the tax under the new plan was $33 million, a drop of $22 million from the previous proposal.

Under the union’s last plan, Detroit would have been the only team to pay a tax last year and would have paid just $660,000.

At the courthouse earlier in the day, Sotomayor held a 30-minute hearing. The judge asked owners for a brief by Wednesday and asked the National Labor Relations Board for a response by the following day.

Players say they would end their strike if Sotomayor issues the injunction, and the union’s executive board is scheduled to convene Wednesday in New York to formally pass a resolution stating that.

Many owners are in favor of locking out players if the union ends the strike without an agreement. But it is unclear if they can get the 21 votes among the 28 teams needed to start a lockout.

The baseball season, which ended when players walked out last Aug. 12, opens Sunday night in Miami with a game between the Florida Marlins and New York Mets. All teams except the Baltimore Orioles have hired replacement players.

Daniel Silverman, the NLRB’s New York regional director, asked Sotomayor to proceed quickly, hoping players would return if the judge “leveled the playing field.”

“We’re very pleased the judge will have an opportunity to reach a decision before the commencement of the season, if she desires to do so,” Silverman said after the hearing.

Lawyers for owners said the court case isn’t tied to an end of the strike, and said the judge should take her time. Owners, who want to eliminate the old rules, maintain they have a right under labor law to have the Player Relations Committee, which represents all 28 clubs, negotiate a collective wage for all free agents.

“We simply do not know what the government is talking about,” management lawyer Frank Casey said.

Sotomayor said she will decide Thursday night, after reading the legal papers from both sides, whether to allow witnesses at Friday’s hearing. She urged players and owners to find a solution at the bargaining table.

The NLRB’s petition asked the judge to restore free-agent bidding and salary arbitration. Owners have refused to arbitrate with players this year, and haven’t signed anyone to a major league contract since Dec. 22. That was the last day they complied with the agreement, which expired Dec. 31, 1993.

“The competitive provisions for free agents and salary arbitration … are an ‘integral part’ of the negotiated wage structure which affects all major league baseball players,” the NLRB wrote in a 35-page brief.