4. This was because the parties were already committed to disagreeing. Under such circumstances, no mediator can be successful. One change that did result from the suggestions of mediators was that several owners became involved in negotiations, and bargaining influence began to slip away from Ravitch and toward owners Jerry McMorris of Colorado and John Harrington of Boston (Monthly Labor Review).Under the owners rules, a three-fourths vote was required to approve a settlement. This created a sever obstacle because the owners were split generally into three groups. The groups were largely based on market size, the small market teams, which include teams like Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Montreal, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Seattle. On the other end were owners with teams in large markets and some owners from smaller market teams that had recently built new stadiums and were doing well financially. These clubs, who had more to lose from a prolonged strike, included Atlanta, Boston, Colorado, Los Angeles, both New York teams, Texas, and Toronto. The remaining teams were somewhere in between, looking for only moderate changes, but were susceptible to arm-twisting from either side (Layden 42).In late August, McMorris and the owners legal counsel, Charles O'Connor, suggested the idea of a graduated luxury tax to the union. If a clubs payroll significantly exceeded the major league average, that club would have to pay a luxury tax based on its total payroll. The tax rate would be graduated the more the clubs payroll exceeded the major league average. Money from the tax would go into a pool that would be distributed to financially needy teams (Monthly Labor Review).The union viewed this proposal as a salary cap in disguise, because clubs would resist signing high-salaried free agents if the addition to payroll would have the side of effect of more taxes being paid. Still, the union tried to work with the luxury tax concept, ...
