Tom_Benjamin said:
The players have refused this from the start. Why wait for January to present their full CBA?
It establishes the players intransigence to even start the negotiating process.
How so? If they are going to have to table their full CBA without this in January why not do it in September? How does it improve their negotiating position to wait? Surely you are not arguing that the purpiose of the lockout so far is to avoid weakening the owner's bargaining position. That's a pretty shoddy way to resolve this problem isn't it?
The CBA tabled in January will be a full one, with all points covered. It will be the one used at impasse, it the players continue to refuse to negotiate.
The owners won't table the same proposal now because they haven't established the definition of hockey revenue yet through negotiations with the union and they would significantly change other clauses based on what is and isn't included in hockey revenue. The players refusal for the past 5 years to define "hockey revenue", even going so far as being willing to let this season be cancelled without discussing it, will be used to justify the owners impostition of their definition in the January CBA. If my suspicions are correct, the definition of hockey revenue will not be open for discussion once the CBA is tabled.
They won't do it in December because they have established that the players are willing to waste a season instead of starting the negotiationg process. This process has been all about establishing the players unwillingness to even begin negotiations by examining the scope of the problem.
In other words, we are weeks into a lockout and the owners have not tabled a single thing to advance the process. They haven't even tabled anything to advance the process towards impasse. They haven't negotiated yet, much less negotiated in good faith. When do they start?
We are YEARS into this process, with the players consistently refusing to even begin the negotiating process.
The owners put 6 proposal on the table, all of which were designed to show that the players were unwilling to discuss any link between salaries and revenue no matter how different the form used to apply that link. They have served their purpose perfectly.
If the NHL goal all the way along has been to work toward impasse, they have already decided not to bargain in good faith. They will lose. It isn't enough to learn from MLB's failure. They still have to show good faith bargaining. Pretending to bargain in good faith doesn't cut it.
I think that even you will admit that the owners have been preparing for this battle for quite some time and have carefully planned this process every step of the way with the help of experts in labour relations legalities. I don't claim to be privvy to their reasoning or ultimate goal, so I'm just taking an outsiders guess at what is happening, but I'm sure they have factored the NHLPA's predictable responses into their equation.
One side is clearly off balance in this dance, unable to understand the other's tactics; while the other is following a carefully crafted plan and is watching the headscratching and laughing.
It is all very well for the Bettman apologists to dump all over the player proposal, but at least it is a proposal. The owners have yet to make one.
Tom
There is no need for the owners to make a full CBA proposal at this time. Having established the players unwillingness to attempt to define the problems facing the league and refusal to attempt to negotiate any definition of hockey revenue they have gotten everything they wanted and expected from this phase in the process.