CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012 2:36PM EST
Last Updated Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012 5:04PM EST
With the clock ticking and after two days of questions and answers about the NHL?s latest offer, the players? association is holding an internal meeting to discuss the latest offer from the league.
The NHLPA said there would be no further meetings with the league Sunday, but the union is planning to meet with the league Monday. They will provide a further update ?in the morning.?
The players? association must decide if it is ready to commence bargaining again, for what could be the last chance to save the hockey season.
The two sides engaged in a series of information sessions on Saturday. They discussed the 300-page proposal that was presented to the union on Thursday. The sessions, which were conducted via conference call and in face-to-face meetings in New York, wrapped up Sunday afternoon.
There?s no guarantee that a new round of bargaining will begin. If the players? association decides to start formal bargaining, talks may begin as early Monday.
There have been no negotiations between the two sides since they met on Dec. 13 with a federal mediator.
League commissioner Gary Bettman has said that if there?s any hope to salvage the season, a deal needs to be reached by Jan. 11 and training camp must begin the next day. Games must start on Jan. 19 to accommodate a 48-game schedule.
CTV?s Melanie Nagy described the mood surrounding the talks in New York as ?serious, right from the beginning,? with both sides realizing what?s at stake.
?Every day that there?s not a deal it?s increasing the risk of not having a season. So the tone is serious,? said Nagy.
Nagy said some have described the latest proposal as having ?some movement.?
?Some people are saying that that?s a good sign, perhaps the ice is breaking,? she said.
Key points from the NHL?s latest offer include:
- A 50-50 split between clubs and players of hockey-related revenue (HRR)
- Contract lengths to be capped at a maximum of six years (up from the previous offer of five years)
- No contractual ?roll backs? of player?s salaries
- US$300 million in deferred transition payments to the players, something the league had taken off the table when talks broke down on Dec. 6.
More highlights of the propsal on TSN.ca
The offer also calls for a six-year term limit on free-agent deals -- up from five -- and will allow teams to re-sign their own players for up to seven years.
Also included is a provision that salary can vary by 10 per cent from year to year during the course of a deal. The league?s previous offer proposed a five per cent difference.
The latest proposal is for 10 years, running through the 2021-22 season. Both sides will have the right to opt out after eight years.
The last time bargaining sessions involving only the NHL and the union were held was on Dec. 6. Those talks abruptly ended after the players? association offered a counterproposal to the league?s previous offer.
The league said that offer was conditional on the union accepting three elements without further bargaining.
The NHL then pulled all existing offers off the table. The following week, two days of sessions with mediators ended without progress.
The NHL has been no stranger to labour disruptions.
In 2004-2005, the NHL became the only professional sports league in North America to cancel a season due to a labour dispute. A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout dragged into January.
There is still a possibility that the courts may eventually settle the current lockout if the two sides fail to reach a deal on their own.
Earlier in December, the NHL filed a class-action suit in U.S. District Court in New York in an attempt to show that its lockout is legal.
The league separately filed an unfair labour practice charge with the National labour Relations Board, arguing bad-faith bargaining by the union.
The league?s moves were prompted because the players? association made progress toward potentially filing a ?disclaimer of interest,? which would dissolve the union and make it a trade association. This would allow players to file antitrust lawsuits against the NHL.
Union members voted to give their board the power to file the disclaimer by Wednesday. If that deadline passes, another vote could be held to authorize a later filing.
With files from The Associated Press
Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/nhl-and-union-end-info-talks-now-pondering-next-steps-1.1095840
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A sad, maybe tragic, Christmas story is unfolding on a small road in Southwold Township near St. Thomas. A woman and two children have been evicted from their home. On January 3rd a sheriff will padlock it. The decision was announced to her last Thursday. Two weeks notice ? over Christmas, wintertime in Ontario.
farm. Most are Standardbreds, injured from the track. There are other horses, too, who had been neglected to the point of starvation or abused physically or mentally. There?s a stallion pony named Sultan, a donkey with a bad attitude, cats, chickens and ducks and two dogs. All are rescues, except Sultan who has been companion to her elder son for 12 years.
Her cats are neutered but still multiply every year. People dump them at her farm gate and strays find their way to her barn. Then she has to pay to get the new ones fixed so more aren?t added ?in house?.
Their lives may end now. If she can?t stay on her farm or find another farm at a rent she can afford, they will go to the Kitchener livestock auction. These are not riding horses or pets. They are damaged horses who need special care. They trust only Brenda and her sons. Some have sponsors them and have developed a relationship with those people. But the ones who muck out stalls, rub on liniments, walk them all night when they have colic are Brenda and her elder son.
bought all the nearby properties and rented them out. As tenants moved, the City left the houses empty. Brenda?s is the last inhabited farm. You can see why the City bought the properties. The smell from the dump is overwhelming at times. Dump trucks and transports rumble up and down the road all day, every day. Debris falls off trucks, making road hazards and taking out windshields.
Brenda moved her family out and stayed with friends. She came back every day to tend the animals. Eventually, after publicity and legal action, Toronto repaired the house and the leaking barn roof.
knowledge, she has not been compensated for that, let alone the hardship of 10 months of displacement from their home. And repairs to the actual problem, the drainage bed, were not done. So it was going to happen again. Legal proceedings continued, then last week she was told to be out by January 2nd.
