WASHINGTON -- The Major League Baseball Players Association called off its signing freeze last night, and inadvertently set off a chain of events that further inflamed the contentious relationship between the players and owners.
No sooner had the players announced that individual players and clubs could resume normal interaction than Major League Baseball negotiator Chuck O'Connor notified the union that individual clubs had been stripped of the authority to negotiate player contracts until a new economic system is put in place.
"In light of the union lifting the signing ban, the Player Relations Committee has withdrawn the power of the clubs to sign individual contracts until we get a collective bargaining agreement," O'Connor said. "Under federal labor law, we have re-established the PRC as having the exclusive right to deal. Under labor law, we are regarded as a single employer, and can delegate the right to negotiate individual contracts."
That was news to the union, which immediately began formulating a legal strategy to combat the ownership freeze. Union director Donald Fehr indicated he would be in touch with the National Labor Relations Board, presumably to try and restart the bad-faith bargaining grievance that was held in abeyance when the owners agreed to lift the implemented salary cap on Friday.
"In Chuck O'Connor's letter to the general counsel, he said, 'The clubs have restored the status quo that existed prior to implementation,' " Fehr said. ". . . Now, the clubs have unilaterally changed the most significant terms and conditions of employment."
The owners, who paid $280 million in damages when they were found guilty of collusion in the late 1980s, have chosen to act in concert again, though O'Connor said that such action is proper in the context of collective bargaining. No doubt, if the freeze lasts beyond today's 5 p.m. settlement deadline, the union will go for another expensive legal victory.
For the moment, however, the most pressing concern for both sides is how last night's flurry of administrative activity will affect the negotiations, which turned very sour again.
"They were willing to take the most provocative step possible," Fehr said. "It can only be an attempt to break off negotiations.
"To throw a bomb into the negotiations suggests pretty clearly that they intend for the bomb to explode."
The union had lifted the signing freeze and was leaving hints that the players might call off their nearly six-month strike if the owners agreed to work under the old system until a new agreement is reached.
O'Connor said last night that the ownership freeze will not affect replacement players, leaving clubs to continue putting together replacement rosters for spring training.
Ownership has been advised by the administration that it will not look kindly on the use of strikebreakers, but it is becoming more and more apparent that neither side in the labor dispute is allowing its actions to be dictated by special mediator William Usery or the White House.