Players’ Union Rejects Owners’ Latest Offer

The baseball players’ union officially rejected the owners’ offer on service time Thursday, but management negotiator Randy Levine said he thought the sides had “inched closer” to an agreement.

Negotiations have been put on hold again until Monday, giving owners a chance to plan their next move on the pivotal issue of restoring service time for the 75 regular-season days the players were on strike in 1994-95.

Management’s labor policy committee will meet with Levine by phone today.

The owners had proposed Wednesday that all players receive service time except those who would become free agents this year if credited with the lost time. The union rejected that proposal, saying all players have to be credited. However, the union didn’t entirely close the door on another owner proposal dealing with the structuring of the union’s option on a second, tax-free year in 2001, which would be the last year of a six-year agreement.

The sides have agreed on a luxury tax in 1997, ’98 and ’99. There will be no tax in 2000, and some owners have objected to that second tax-free year in 2001, which was a trade-off for the union’s reducing its monetary take from the divisional playoffs. The owners’ proposal of Wednesday was aimed at buying the union out of that option or increasing the union’s financial contribution if it is retained.

Union leader Donald Fehr said the structure that has already been agreed to should remain in place, but the fact that he didn’t totally reject it led to Levine’s comment about inching closer.

Sources on both sides believe that the owners, having placated their own hard-liners, will offer full service time Monday, hoping to get union concessions on arbitration, the second tax-free year and litigation stemming from the strike.