Negotiations

The Fox network's first telecast of a Super Bowl certainly will draw a lot of notice this week, but away from the Superdome, NFL and broadcast industry observers will be paying attention to a bigger competition down the road.That would be the negotiations for the next NFL television contract, talks that promise to be at least as eventful as the last ones more than three years ago, which got Fox its ticket into the big leagues of television.Amid indications that CBS -- which Fox pushed out of the NFL realm with a whopping $1.58 billion bid over four years -- is itching to get back into the pro football business behind new sports president Sean McManus, the negotiations that will open later this year become critical for Fox in its push to plant its foot firmly on the ledge with the Big Three -- ABC, CBS and NBC. The network, which grabbed baseball and hockey, cannot afford to lose football, even if the sport is a money loser.

Giant Food and Safeway, the Baltimore region's two largest supermarket chains, are recruiting temporary workers as contract negotiations continue with the union that represents 23,000 employees. The current agreement expires March 31. The companies said hiring additional staffing was standard during contract talks. Safeway said in a newspaper advertisement that it was seeking applications for temporary workers "due to a possible labor dispute. " "In the event of a work stoppage, we'll be able to keep our stores up and running and serve our customers," Giant spokesman Jamie Miller said Tuesday, noting that both grocers sought temporary workers during the last contract talks, in 2008.

The stakes are high for the Board of Education as negotiators prepare to talk contracts with four school unions.The Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County (TAAAC) wants more planning time for teachers and more money for newcomers to a county top-heavy with potential retirees. Principals are asking for a greater differential between their salaries and those of teachers. Overworked school secretaries would like to be paid overtime and taken out of the school nurse business. Cafeteria workers and custodians are looking for more money.

THE NATIONAL interest will suffer grievously if President Clinton fails to obtain the fast-track authority he seeks from Congress to negotiate multilateral trade agreements. Without it, other governments won't deal seriously because they won't know if the administration can deliver.Fast track is jargon for Congress' relinquishing authority to amend legislation implementing trade agreements while retaining the right to reject them. It is necessary when many countries negotiate an agreement.

WASHINGTON -- Both management and labor at the Socia Security Administration are hopeful that negotiations for a new three-year contract that started yesterday will be less divisive and more productive than in years past."

WASHINGTON - Moving quickly to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process after inconclusive talks at Camp David, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials disclosed plans yesterday for a flurry of diplomatic parleys to pave the way for the resumption of negotiations this summer. Israeli negotiator Oded Eran is to meet chief Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erekat on Sunday, five days after two weeks of talks at Camp David broke up with no agreement. Israel disclosed plans yesterday for Prime Minister Ehud Barak to visit Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

The school budget for 1993 provides no money for raises, yet negotiations are about to begin with the five unions representing the district's 2,000 employees.Something -- or someone -- has to give."There's currently no money in the (1993) budget for salary increases," said William Hyde, assistant superintendent for administration."If we go to the table, and it's negotiated, we have to go back to the county and say we need more money, or we have to go back to the budget and realign it," Hyde said.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- President F. W. de Klerk warned yesterday that South Africa faced the prospect of "devastating war" if the current negotiations between blacks and whites failed to produce a democratic solution.Mr. de Klerk opened Parliament, expected to be the last segregated Parliament South Africa will have, with this dire warning and said the negotiations still had a long way to go. For the first time since coming to office, he had no bold initiatives or proposals to move the country away from apartheid and toward democratic rule.

Decertification hangs over NFL labor negotiations like an anvil. In its brief but illustrious history in pro football, decertification was the wild-card strategy that brought free agency to the players in 1992 after a three-year court battle against the owners. Now it is the fall-back position for the NFL Players Association if — when? — negotiations with the league fail to yield a new collective bargaining agreement. Whether it is enough to ensure another union victory for the players is another matter, however.

Baltimore's Board of Estimates yesterday approved a $125,000 agreement with a New York labor consulting firm despite the staunch objections of the city's police and fire unions, who argued that a company negotiator acted in bad faith and said the money would be better spent on improvements in their contracts.The agreement with Hay Management Consultants was needed to provide "essential" information on police and fire pay and benefits, said city Labor Commissioner Melvin A. Harris, who heads a five-person staff responsible for negotiating 13 union contracts annually.