Putting aside the thorny issue of revenue sharing for a day, negotiators for baseball's club owners and the players spent their brief meeting yesterday on the subjects of minimum salary and the benefits plan. The owners presented counterproposals on both issues, and both sides pronounced the movement positive.þþÿWe made good progress on both issues and are certainly closer to an agreement in those areas than we were previously,ÿ Rob Manfred, the owners' chief labor lawyer, said.þþGene Orza, the union's associate general counsel, concurred. ÿI think we're moving toward agreement in those areas,ÿ he said.þþNeither side provided details of the new proposals. The minimum salary has been $200,000 for each of the last four seasons. The clubs initially proposed an increase to $285,000 with an additional increase every other year based on a cost-of-living adjustment. The union proposed $300,000 with an increase of $25,000 each season. Now that the clubs have moved closer to the union's position, the union is expected to make a counterproposal of its own. The $500 million benefits plan has been a difficult issue in some previous negotiations, but the two sides seem to be moving toward resolving it without a problem this time.þþNegotiators plan to meet again today and return to the critical revenue-sharing issue.þþ
Source: NY Times
