WASHINGTON -- The presidential deadline passed and, of course, was replaced by another.
Baseball's lengthy labor dispute is littered with well-intentioned deadlines such as the one the Clinton administration imposed on the negotiations 12 days ago. Most of them have been ignored or extended, just as this one was moved back to 3 p.m. today.
Special mediator William J. Usery said that it was he who failed to meet yesterday's 5 p.m. target for a recommended settlement, but there were indications that the presidential effort to force an agreement was coming unraveled even as Labor Secretary Robert Reich scrambled to put a positive spin on the situation.
"On the 100th birthday of Babe Ruth, the Babe would not be
enormously optimistic for any settlement right now," Reich said. "William Usery has asked for a few more hours -- until 3 tomorrow -- because he doesn't want to leave one stone unturned."
Usery gave a slightly different explanation, saying that he ran out time before his recommendation was complete, leaving room to wonder if the mediators simply were stalling while the administration determines whether it can back up its call for an imposed settlement.
Clinton would need Congress to pass special legislation to force a settlement, but congressional leaders have indicated that such a measure, even with bipartisan support, would not necessarily breeze through both houses.
In the midst of a battle over the $1.6 trillion budget, even the president seemed to have lost some enthusiasm for the dispute.
"It's just a few hundred folks trying to figure out how to divide nearly $2 billion. They ought to be able to figure that out," Clinton said.
White House officials acknowledged that the president's powers are limited in this area. He found a loophole to salvage his Mexican bailout plan recently, but no such power exists to unilaterally intervene in the baseball dispute.
"We just don't have that many tools," a senior White House official said yesterday. "As long as there is any prospect that they'll talk further, we should pursue it."
Usery visited the White House yesterday to confer with administration officials. He also delivered a letter to Clinton that was drafted by the players, outlining their hopes and concerns but -- according to Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine -- not asking for anything specific.
Usery is expected to bounce some concepts off both sides early today to see if there is reason to resume negotiations, then will report to the president later in the afternoon.
"I refuse to be pessimistic," said Usery, "although it seems very difficult to find the voluntary settlement that we all want so much."
Meanwhile, the players union went back to work on another governmental front. The players returned to the National Labor Relations Board yesterday, hoping to convince the board that the owners again had run afoul of their legal requirement to bargain in good faith.
The latest complaint charges that the owners acted in bad faith Sunday night, when they revoked the authority of individual clubs to negotiate with players and designated ownership's Player Relations Committee as the sole bargaining agent. The move essentially restored the signing freeze that had been lifted just hours earlier by the union.
Union officials filed a new charge that claimed the owners acted illegally by implementing a new condition of employment.
They also asked the NLRB to consider the freeze as additional evidence of bad-faith bargaining for the purpose of reopening the NLRB complaint process that appeared to end when the owners agreed to lift the implemented salary cap Friday.
Management counsel Chuck O'Connor gave the NLRB a letter Friday stating "the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee Inc. has revoked the terms and conditions of employment that were unilaterally implemented on Dec. 22, 1994, and restored the status quo that existed prior to implementation."
O'Connor cited federal labor law in the decision to strip teams of their ability to bargain individually, but the move appeared to violate the spirit of the agreement with the NLRB.
The status quo -- as it existed Dec. 22 -- included no restrictions on negotiations between players and clubs.
"I guess it's their version of the Emancipation Proclamation . . . in reverse," said union counsel Lauren Rich. "They are trying to wipe away 130 years of individual bargaining."
The freeze also may have significant antitrust implications, because the move magnified the monopoly control that the owners are able to exercise in their dealings with the players.
The union has not shied away from comparison with ownership attempts to inhibit the free-agent market in the late 1980s, which prompted a series of collusion verdicts and a $280 million judgment for the players. O'Connor claims that the owners are entitled to act in concert during the course of collective bargaining.
The big question is this: Why did the owners make such an inflammatory announcement at a time when they appeared to be making solid gains in the public relations war with the union?
The owners got points last week for presenting a new proposal that toned down or removed a number of inflammatory provisions that were included in earlier offers. They also got credit for compromise when they agreed to lift the salary cap, even though they did it to avoid possible NLRB sanctions.
The clubs likely even gained some public sympathy when the union presented a proposal Saturday that did not differ significantly from the one they delivered to the owners Dec. 22.
So why did the owners upend the process Sunday night? Management sources said that O'Connor did it simply to delay the reimplementation of the old economic system, hoping that ++ the issue would become moot when a new settlement is reached. He apparently was shocked that the union took such offense.
Now, there is room to wonder if the players were not the only ones to question that strategy.
O'Connor reportedly is on the verge of being replaced as ownership's chief strategist, because a number of clubs have expressed doubts about the course he has recommended and the fallout from several past ownership attempts to control the economic environment.
Ownership is represented by O'Connor's Washington law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Baccheus, which was hired to represent the owners in the middle of the collusion litigation. Since then, O'Connor has been instrumental in devising ownership's ill-fated information bank -- which spawned the third collusion grievance -- as well as the recent decisions to withhold $7.8 million in pension funds and impose the salary cap prematurely.
There has been speculation that O'Connor will be replaced as chief negotiator by Robert Ballow, a hard-line management negotiator from Nashville, Tenn.
If there is a major change in the chemistry of the ownership negotiating team, it again could slow the collective bargaining process. But there still is the outside chance that the two sides will cave in to pressure from the Clinton administration to settle
the dispute.