Union, Management Discuss ‘Partnership’ Issue : Baseball: Revenue-sharing proposal would join the two entities, perhaps dividing control of game.

To what extent would the Major League Players Assn. become a partner of baseball’s owners if the union accepted the revenue-sharing plan proposed in the collective bargaining negotiations?

Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, said he asked that question during Thursday’s negotiations in New York.

“We would not be insisting on overall veto power, but if revenue were to be the sole determinant of salaries, then we would want to make sure revenues were maximized, and we would have to have some veto power over economic issues,” Fehr said after the meeting. “We told them that they had to be prepared to abandon unilateral control.”

And the PRC’s reaction?

“They didn’t have a direct response, but they understand how we feel,” Fehr said.

Charles O’Connor, interim director of the PRC, said that the partnership inherent in revenue sharing translates to more input from the union.

He cited marketing, merchandising and international expansion as areas in which union involvement might help increase the “economic pie.”

“Would they be involved in traditional management issues? No.” O’Connor said. “But there are a lot of areas in which the union’s involvement would help shape the industry’s growth.”

The union has still not drafted a definitive response to the revenue-sharing proposal, Fehr said, nor has the PRC offered a “satisfactory explanation in real economic terms” of what the problems are that require such radical change.

Fehr said he asked the PRC to present that explanation at its next formal negotiating session Wednesday in Tampa, Fla.

Management has proposed that 48% of the clubs’ gate and TV-radio income be shared with the players. The salaries of players with zero to six years of major league service would be determined by a statistical table and shared equally by the 26 clubs. The overall plan would eliminate arbitration and restrict free agency with a salary cap. O’Connor said Thursday, however, that the PRC is willing to accept modifications in the pay-for-performance system, allowing the union--rather than a statistical table--to determine how and how much of the 48% would be allotted to players in the zero-to-six category.

He reiterated that an agreement--or definitive progress toward an agreement--must be in place by Feb. 15 or spring training camps will not open, and he said that the owners have amassed a fund of $170 million as insurance against a work stoppage.