In baseball strike, government should keep to the dugout

Your Feb. 9 editorial urged congressional repeal of baseball's antitrust exemption because of its purported relationship to a labor negotiation. The action sought is based on the mistaken view that the end of the baseball strike would quickly follow.

I share the enormous frustration felt by baseball fans everywhere who want the strike to end. However, I know from experience that interference in these labor negotiations simply prolongs the process and does nothing to resolve the issue. Presidential intervention has already derailed negotiations and extended a dispute that might very well have been settled if he and others had not intervened.

The owners' actions are not based on any power that comes from the 1922 federal baseball case. The owners' action is based on the antitrust exemption from labor law matters granted by Congress. These exemptions allowed the NFL to achieve its salary cap, allows the NBA to continue its salary cap and college player draft, allowed the NHL to achieve a negotiated settlement of its dispute, and controls every other labor negotiation in the country.

The labor laws are designed to promote negotiated settlements without outside interference. Furthermore, to ensure that the parties negotiate the issues before them, labor matters are deliberately exempted from antitrust review, except in very rare occasions that have no bearing on this matter. The players have other interests, however. Their target became clear during a December news conference. Donald Fehr, the union leader, said of the action by the owners, "This is a cartel acting like a cartel." By those words, Fehr indicates that his target is the federal baseball exemption. He knows that the actions taken by owners were firmly based on the labor exemption and not "cartel-like."

While owners are held responsible for the game as an institution, this responsibility extends to their fans and communities. The owners' proposal is aimed at providing franchise stability. After the moves of the 1950s to California, Milwaukee and other cities, baseball has been very stable, based on the federal baseball exemption.

Players, on the other hand, find that stability anathema. Their responsibility is to their members and they want franchises that move from market to market. They abhor the fact that owners have agreed to an improved revenue sharing plan and salary cap so that baseball with be stable and prosper in Pittsburgh. They say that the Pirates should be moved so that they can pay higher player salaries. Labor negotiations are controlled by the National Labor Relations Act and related labor laws. The antitrust exemptions for labor matters, however, are not well-known. In the leading case, an antitrust complaint was filed against a union which claimed that the statutory exemption protected it. The Supreme court found that Congress intended to limit the application of antitrust laws to labor disputes.

The baseball labor dispute is over a mandatory subject of bargaining: cost of labor. Antitrust has nothing to do with it. The players' association is led and staffed by labor lawyers of great intellect and experience. They know that the current dispute is not subject to antitrust analysis. They also know that claiming management has an advantage gets them the sympathy of those who would act in their favor. Furthermore, by making this claim to the players, union solidarity is enhanced.

By interjecting antitrust into these negotiations, Fehr has realized the union negotiators' dream and ignored congressional intent. In this matter, he seeks to legislate and litigate but not negotiate. We are watching the end game of a very complicated and hard-fought labor negotiation.

I understand the frustration that all of us feel for the loss of part of a season and all the World Series. To fans like me, the special nature of baseball requires that it be treated with great care. Unfortunately, labor matters require labor negotiations, and these can be bitterly contested. Our nation's history of such negotiations tell us that it is best to allow the two sides to battle it out, but that there be only two sides. Intervention by third parties has damaged baseball's labor negotiations in the past, and it is thus very important that there be no such interference at this time.

Like so many baseball fans, I spend the winter looking forward to the next season. I am eager for a solution to the current problem so that the season can start. However, I know that the only solution is to allow the antagonists to deal with the issues under the labor laws.

-Clark C. Griffith, Minneapolis. Lawyer and former vice president and treasurer of the Minnesota Twins.

from the "Star Tribune", March 4, 1995. Reprinted with permission.