Debate over the direction of secret talks in baseball's labor negotiations a year ago refuses to go away. Although those talks will not determine the outcome of the ongoing negotiations, the fallout from them continues to infect the bargaining environment.þþLast week's disclosure of a letter from the owners' chief labor lawyer to the players' labor leader appeared to support Commissioner Bud Selig's position that the two sides were not close enough, or in position, to make a deal before Selig terminated the talks last summer.þþBut Donald Fehr's reply last Jan. 8 to Rob Manfred, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, paints a different picture of the talks between Fehr and his aides on the players' side, and Manfred and Paul Beeston, chief operating officer of Major League Baseball, on the clubs' side.þþÿBoth sides believed that real progress was being made,ÿ Fehr wrote in the seven-page letter. ÿA number of the participants, including you, remarked about how different and more positive these discussions seemed to be compared to past negotiations.ÿþþIn his Dec. 14 letter, Manfred told Fehr that the union's June 20 proposal addressed only one of three major issues, revenue sharing, ignoring a payroll tax and a worldwide draft. It was inaccurate, Manfred said, ÿto suggest that the proposal was a major step forward.ÿþþManfred also was critical of the proposal on revenue sharing, saying ÿsuch a small increase in revenue sharing, in a format unacceptable to the clubs, left us with few options.ÿþþIn his reply, Fehr reminded Manfred that Beeston called the proposal ÿa positive step,ÿ that Manfred ÿappeared to share that viewÿ and that Beeston said that Selig did, too.þþFehr also wrote that everyone, including Manfred and Beeston, ÿunderstood that for the discussions to progressÿ the two sides had to address revenue sharing and that the clubs never presented a counterproposal that had been promised for June 28. Nearly two weeks passed, Fehr said, without a counterproposal.þþÿYou did say that it would be best,ÿ Fehr wrote, ÿif I could `hold (my) fire,' i.e. not inform the press about what had happened, and I did not do so.ÿþþThroughout July and into August, Fehr added, Beeston told the union he hoped to be able to resume talks from the point where they had been broken off. Then, in early August, Fehr wrote, ÿPaul said that he had nothing to tell us and that there was no point in holding meetings.ÿþþFehr also reminded Manfred that it was the clubs that suggested, in February 2001, holding the secret talks without owners or players. þþBeeston, Fehr wrote, said that he hoped to have an agreement by opening day of last season, a timetable he subsequently changed to the All-Star Game, ÿa goal which, in light of the substance and tenor of the talks, did not seem unattainable.ÿ The two sides met throughout April, May and June.þþ
Source: NY Times
