Labour Talks continue surprisingly for second straight day between League, Players' Association -NHL Update
The National Hockey League (NHL) and Players’ Association, surprisingly, continued talks for a second straight day after kicking them off for the first time on Friday, September 28, 2012, following a deadlock with the previous collective bargaining agreement
coming to an end without any breakthrough negotiations.
It is reported by a number of sources that many minor, but yet important, aspects were talked over and even agreed upon by the both sides that have been deadlocked over key economic issues, but unfortunately, the major issues still remain to be solved by
the two stakeholders.
"As I said [Friday] night, these meetings are necessary but they've been described, I think, as the underbrush," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. "Certainly, they are not the main issues that need to be tackled to get a deal."
The latest meeting, which was held on Saturday, is reported to have focused mainly on how to focus on clearing issues without being deadlocked on them and instead of further time wastage, both sides agreed on keeping the negotiation process in tact over
the next few days to make some real progress.
"In general we're trying to discuss how do we find a way to make an agreement, how do we bridge the gaps on the major issues that are between us -- the kind of things you would hope we would be talking about," NHLPA Executive Director, Donald Fehr, said.
It is expected that the two sides will meet again for a third consecutive day, on Sunday, to keep the process rolling without a break since there are not many days remaining till the 2012-2013 regular season is expected to start and delaying it any further
could mean more games being cancelled.
Unless both stakeholders can start talking on the key issues, meeting continuously is not seen to be very beneficial to Bill Daly.
"You're going to continue to have that [frustration] issue until we're able to talk about those issues," Daly added.
It will definitely be interesting to see how things play out in the upcoming days as both sides continue to negotiate and show keen interesting in actually getting something done this time around.
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