Nlrb Chooses Injunction Route
The National Labor Relations Board, convening in an extraordinary Sunday session, voted 3-2 to seek an injunction against baseball owners that could lead to an end of the 7 1/2-month strike.
With opening day just a week away and owners threatening to start the season with replacement players, the sides agreed to resume bargaining in New York tonight after a 23-day break.
Players say they will end the walkout if a judge issues the injunction, which would restore salary arbitration, free agent bidding and anti-collusion rules.
But many owners are in favor of locking out players if the union ends the strike without an agreement. It’s unclear if they can get the necessary 21 votes among the 28 teams.
“We’ll file tomorrow and we hope to be in a position to request the judge render a decision before the season starts,” said the agency’s New York regional director, Daniel Silverman.
NLRB chairman William Gould, a former baseball salary arbitrator, was in favor of seeking the injunction and was joined in the majority by Margaret Browning and John Truesdale. All three are Democrats.
Voting against the move were James Stephens and Charles Cohen, the board’s two Republicans.
Acting commissioner Bud Selig said that owners were disappointed in the decision, but “are encouraged that the board’s vote was split 3-2. We believe the clubs’ position will prevail in District Court.”
The sides, meanwhile, spent the day discussing a possible bargaining session in New York tonight. Colorado Rockies chairman Jerry McMorris said he would join acting commissioner Bud Selig and Boston Red Sox chief executive officer John Harrington at the table.
“If something’s going to give, it has to give now before we start the season with replacement players,” McMorris said in Tucson, Ariz., between innings at an exhibition game between the Rockies and the Oakland Athletics.
On March 15, the agency’s general counsel, Fred Feinstein, filed a complaint against owners accusing them of illegally eliminating several provisions of the expired collective bargaining agreement. Under the labor laws, management must wait until after a legal impasse in bargaining to alter terms and conditions that “vitally affect” wages.
Two days later, Feinstein requested permission from the board to seek the injunction.
Silverman spent Sunday in his office. After he files the motion today in U.S. District Court in New York, the clerk of the court will randomly select a judge from among the 38 who sit on that court. The selected judge will then schedule a hearing, probably later this week.