As the number of days to the players' strike deadline dwindled to a single digit, negotiators for players and owners continued to disagree over the effect the owners' economic proposals would have on player salaries.þþDonald Fehr, the players' labor leader, said that the clubs were waging ÿa wholesale attack on the salary structureÿ and that they wanted to ÿundermine the operation of the player compensation market.ÿþþRob Manfred, the clubs' chief labor lawyer, said that the clubs had entered these negotiations with ÿa modest set of proposalsÿ and that they wanted only to create ÿa speed bumpÿ for the biggest-spending teams. þþThe starkly different views, Fehr's expressed in a memo to players, Manfred's to reporters, echoed circumstances at the bargaining table. The two sides met twice yesterday and discussed the two key economic issues, a luxury tax on payrolls and revenue sharing, but they remained entrenched in their positions.þþManfred declined to say whether any new proposals were made, but another negotiator said that ÿthe numbers did not change; no one expected them to.ÿþþThe two sides are far apart on the two key elements of the luxury tax issue — the payroll threshold over which a tax would be imposed and the tax rate. The two sides have agreed that the rate would rise each season a team eclipsed the threshold, but that is all they have agreed on.þþIn a separate memo that Fehr sent to player agents, he compared the amount of money the economic proposals of each side would cost clubs. Using this season's payrolls and last season's local revenue, Fehr said the clubs' proposals would cost the Yankees $86.9 million compared with $28.2 million last year, and would cost the Mets $35.8 million compared with $16.3 million last year.þþÿIt is not difficult,ÿ Fehr wrote in the memo obtained by The New York Times, ÿto see how the owners' combined revenue sharing and luxury tax proposals would be tantamount to a salary cap.ÿþþManfred disagreed strongly with Fehr's characterizations of the clubs' proposals. The clubs, he said, were seeking an increase in the amount of local revenue they would share and a tax that ÿat most would impact a handful of teams.ÿþþÿI can't imagine how one would call that a wholesale assault on the salary structure,ÿ he said, adding that whatever were to happen to payrolls of the highest-spending clubs would be ÿmore than made upÿ by increased expenditures of other clubs. ÿThe single biggest change will be a reduction in payroll disparity,ÿ he said.þþCommenting on Fehr's reference to a salary cap, Manfred said: ÿIf the owners really wanted a salary cap, they know how to propose a salary cap and they would have instructed me to do so. Instead we approached this negotiation with a modest set of proposals. Alone or in combination, they cannot be classified as a salary cap.ÿþþThe clubs tried to get a salary cap in the 1994 negotiations, and the players wound up striking on Aug. 12. They did not return until the next April, after a federal judge ruled that the new rules the clubs had tried to implement unilaterally had to be discarded in favor of returning to the rules of the expired agreement. þþAsked if he thought the memo to the players was damaging to the talks, Manfred said: ÿI assume the memo was sent to brief the players and prepare them for a work stoppage. If he said, `I agree with Rob Manfred that they are moderate proposals,' I don't think they'd be preparing a work stoppage.ÿþþIn his memo to players, Fehr pointed out that the owners' tax proposal would affect seven teams, whose payrolls exceed $102 million.þþFive other teams, Fehr wrote, are within $10 million of the clubs' proposed threshold and could exceed it during the years when the threshold would remain $102 million.þþÿWe have had a difficult six or seven days, including setting of the strike date,ÿ Manfred said, ÿbut our goal remains to get an agreement before any days are lost to the union's strike.ÿþMike Stanton, the Yankees' player representative, concurred with that goal.þþÿI think there's reason to be a little optimistic just because they keep going back and forth to the table,ÿ he said after a conference call of the union's executive board. ÿIf there weren't things going on, then they wouldn't be going back to the table. They're not going to go talk about the weather, not at this point.ÿþþ
Source: NY Times
