One side makes a new proposal, trumpets it as a significant move toward a compromise and the other side paints it as far less than that.
Welcome to baseball labor negotiations: different year, same old story.
“I think we made a significant move in their direction,” chief owners negotiator Rob Manfred said yesterday after the owners made a new economic proposal to the players. “We’re going in a straight line.”
The owners made the proposal one day after trashing the proposal sent their way by the players.
The main hurdles to an agreement remain luxury tax, revenue sharing and the union’s insistence on a tax-free agreement in the fourth and final year of the agreement.
The owners made small strides on the luxury tax, which is aimed largely at the free-spending Yankees. Yesterday’s proposal increased the threshold at which tax rates kick in to $107 million from $102 million in the first three years of the new contract and to $111 million in 2006. Players want thresholds of $125 million next year, $135 million in 2004, $145 million in 2005 and no tax in the final season of the deal.
Union boss Donald Fehr indicated the thresholds are not close to being agreeable to the players and also said the players are not interested in a system whereby the threshold does not increase each year.
Owners lowered most of their proposed tax rates by 2.5 percent, proposing a team be taxed at 35 percent the first time it exceeded the threshold, 40 percent the second, 45 percent the third and 50 percent the fourth. The players want the range of the taxes to go from 15 to 40 percent and vanish entirely in the final year of the deal.
On revenue sharing, owners proposed that teams share 36 percent of their locally generated revenue, up from 20 percent this year. The union proposed 33.3 percent in its Saturday proposal.