Given the stagnant status of baseball's labor negotiations, yesterday appeared to be a good day. Representatives of the players and owners moved close to final agreement on a package of minor issues, and the negotiators returned to a discussion of the major issues of revenue sharing and payroll tax. þþSeveral people who attended the bargaining session at the commissioner's office said the management team made slight changes in its proposal on those two major issues. The changes were the first since the proposal was formally made Feb. 26. þþPerhaps even more significant was that the two sides discussed revenue sharing and a payroll tax at all. The core issues, as they are called, had been absent from the agenda of recent bargaining sessions. þþThe rate of local revenue to be shared and the rate of tax on portions of payrolls over $98 million remained 50 percent each in the management proposal. But the clubs, one person said, reduced the proposed $100 million commissioner's discretionary fund to $85 million and made a change in the method used to calculate the value of certain contracts for payroll-tax purposes. þþThe latter change could reduce the amount of tax owed under certain circumstances, the person said. þþUnder the clubs' original proposal, the commissioner would have a discretionary pool of $100 million a year from payroll-tax proceeds and central fund revenue, which includes money from the national television package and licensing. þþThe commissioner would use the money, beyond the sharing of local revenue, to aid clubs with revenue that lagged behind the wealthier clubs, such as the Yankees and the Mets. The union has balked at such a large amount in the discretionary fund and instead proposed that $30 million be taken from the central fund and be used for ``supplemental sharing.'' þþThe negotiators are scheduled to meet again next Wednesday and Thursday, then twice the following week. þ
Source: NY Times
