Strike

This is not one of those strike preview/review essays.There will be no suggestions of what each side should do. Why would anyone waste perfectly good breath on it?A good place to hold the negotiation sessions, though, would be Central Park, about midnight.There will be no lamenting what terrific seasons some of the chattels are having . . . and how unjust it is that they may be deprived of the opportunity of attaining one-season immortality. Or having their bubble-gum card take on the value of the Hope Diamond.

A hospital workers' union has given notice that it might strike Johns Hopkins or Sinai hospitals on or after Dec. 10, Fred D. Mason, executive vice president of District 1199E of the Service Employees International Union, said yesterday.Mason and spokesmen for both hospitals said talks are continuing, and all parties said they are hopeful agreements can be reached without a strike.District 1199E is also bargaining with Liberty Medical Center and Greater Baltimore Medical Center, but has not issued strike notifications to them.

Giant Food Inc. said yesterday that its fourth-quarter earnings, to be reported March 25, will be hurt by the five-week truck drivers strike.The company gave no indication of how significantly sales and earnings have been affected by the Teamsters Local 639 strike, but it said margins would continue to be depressed as the Landover-based grocery store chain tries to recapture its market share with store promotions.The strike, which ended Jan. 19, brought increased costs in distribution, store payroll, security, overtime and legal expenses.

A threatened strike against Amtrak's passenger service has been temporarily averted, but negotiators for the railroad workers remain on a collision course with the Conrail freight system.Jedd Dodd, head of the Pennsylvania Federation of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, said the threat of a strike against Amtrak had dissolved because the national passenger railroad agreed to delay implementation of a new health insurance program until the issue could be addressed in mediation talks.

The Major League Baseball Players Association did not set a (( strike date yesterday, but union representatives left little doubt that there will be a labor confrontation if ownership presses forward with its plan to implement a revenue-based salary cap.The executive board of the players union met at the O'Hare Airport Hilton yesterday to discuss the ownership proposal, which calls for a salary cap based on a 50-50 revenue split. Ownership claims that the cap is necessary to save the game from financial calamity, but the players have -- so far -- refused to consider anything that would inhibit their earning potential.

The Orioles, baseball's most profitable team a year ago, would suffer their first operating loss since 1982 if players carry through their threat to strike Aug. 12 and stay away from major-league ballparks through the World Series.A season-ending strike would saddle the Orioles with an operating loss of $5.1 million this year, club officials said yesterday.Before the season, the Orioles had projected a $7.9 million operating profit, bringing the full economic impact of a work stoppage on the team to $13 million.

The strike has understandably sent local and national radio JTC and television outlets for a loop, with hours of time to program and no baseball to fill it with.Home Team Sports, which carries the bulk of Orioles games, will replace them with an amalgam of live and taped sporting events, including minor-league baseball, tennis, boxing, stock car racing, indoor soccer and replays of NBA games.Marcellus Alexander, general manager of WJZ-13, said the station will fill its Orioles schedule with ABC programming or movies.

Excerpt of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's speech on the war. The Arabic broadcast was translated by the Associated Press: When they exhausted all pretexts and covers, the aggressors and occupiers came with their black faces showing evil canine teeth and exposing their true nature as we used to know them and their intentions. You know, brothers, that our policy is to avoid evil, but when evil comes to us wielding its perfidious and destructive weapons, then an attitude of glory and jihad should be adopted, an attitude that pleases them as well as God. Thus today you, great Iraqi men and noble women and our brave armed forces, adopt that attitude.

News Report:"March 19, 2095 -- Ken Burns IV has created a moving sequel to his great-grandfather's "Baseball" series of 100 years ago. Pay Per View-America will begin transmitting the work to home computer pods next month."Mr. Burns' work recounts baseball's second century, from deregulation to the first billion-dollar bonus baby to introduction of the titanium bat and lighted ball. The first installment recalls the wrenching Strike of '95 that nearly wrecked the game. The giant of that era was Cal Ripken Jr., shortstop for the then-Baltimore Orioles, who refused to cross his union's picket line to save his consecutive games' streak.