MANITOBA

First Nations oppose permanent Hydro river flow permit

Representatives for two northern First Nations are asking the provincial government to deny approval for a permanent Manitoba Hydro permit that allows the utility considerable flexibility in manipulating two rivers.

In the 1970s, Hydro diverted water from the Churchill River into the Nelson River at Southern Indian Lake, in order to increase its generating capacity along the Nelson. The diversion caused devastating and ongoing impacts to the environment along both river basins, and ripple effects in the First Nations communities throughout the region.

Operation of the diversion began in 1976, on an interim licence issued under the Water Power Act. The move caused the water level of Southern Indian Lake to rise by approximately three metres.

In 1986, Manitoba Hydro was given permission to increase the amount of water the utility diverted from the Churchill River by 15 per cent. What has become known as the augmented flow program now allows the Crown corporation to raise and lower the water level of Southern Indian Lake by as much as three to 4.5 feet.

Temporary approval permits have been repeatedly reapproved on an annual basis for three-and-a-half decades.

“They want the terms of the augmented flow program, in essence, to carry on permanently through a final licence into the future. To us, that’s a death sentence,” said Les Dysart, community lead on hydro issues for O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, approximately 130 kilometres northwest of Thompson, on the shores of Southern Indian Lake.

The impacts on fish populations and high levels of mercury in the traditional food source are of principal concern in the region.

For O-Pipon-Na-Piwin, whitefish is a critical species; for Tataskweyak Cree Nation (about 150 km northeast of Thompson), sturgeon is a particularly important species that has been impacted by ongoing river alterations.

“The government has allowed Hydro to take the sturgeon on the Churchill River to the brink of extinction. We need (Conservation and Climate) Minister (Sarah) Guillemard to stop the augmented flow program and operate (the diversion) in a way that ensures the full protection and survival of the endangered Churchill River sturgeon,” said Tataskweyak band councillor Robert Spence.

“We share the same fate as the sturgeon.”

Tataskweyak is currently pursuing a research project to establish sturgeon numbers are continuing to fall, decades after the first disturbance of the river. The partial goal is to have the species recognized as locally endangered.

A spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro referred all questions on the topic to the provincial government, but said the Crown corporation applied in 2009 for the final permit that would allow status quo operations to continue.

Via email, a spokesperson for Guillemard said: “The minister is reviewing the consultation summary materials and will make a licensing decision very soon, with a commitment to ongoing engagement with Indigenous communities.”

However, the representatives from both First Nations objected to meaningful consultation having been pursued ahead of the decision.

“I was active in assisting the First Nation in 2010, and that was the first formal communication we received from the province. And for the last 11 years, there’s just been a series of meetings to try and start consultation... Manitoba seems to imply all the time that this is somehow meaningful,” said Dysart.

Sarah Lawrynuik, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

US Federal judge delivers new blow to foes of Twin Metals mine

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a second attempt by opponents of the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota to invalidate the mineral rights leases needed for the project.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden said new arguments and evidence raised by the opponents in the 2020 lawsuit would not have changed the outcome of the case, which challenged the Interior Department's 2019 decision to renew the decades-old leases for the site near Ely.

The plaintiffs included the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, several businesses in the Ely area, and other groups that said the Interior Department failed to conduct a sufficiently extensive environmental review, and therefore unlawfully renewed the leases.

“Plaintiffs have moved the needle from ‘no evidence’ to ‘some evidence.’ But they are still far from submitting the ‘clear evidence’ needed to surmount the presumption that Interior faithfully discharged its duties," McFadden wrote.

The Obama administration in its final weeks refused to renew the leases, citing the potential threat to the nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. But the Trump administration reversed that decision and reinstated the leases. In his previous ruling, the judge framed the agency's decision as correcting its own error.

When Twin Metals, which is owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta PLC, submitted its formal mine plan to federal and state regulators in 2019, the company said its design would prevent any acid mine drainage. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is still reviewing that plan.

The Associated Press

CRIMINAL MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
Anti-monopoly fine pushes Alibaba to first operating loss as public company

 Reuters/Thomas Peter FILE PHOTO: The logo of Alibaba Group is seen at its office in Beijing

(Reuters) -China's top e-commerce platform Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Thursday posted its first quarterly operating loss since going public in 2014 due to a record anti-monopoly fine by the country's market regulator.
Its U.S.-listed shares fell nearly 3% in choppy trading, even as the company forecast strong 2022 revenue, betting that the pandemic-driven shift to online shopping will remain resilient.

The outlook, however, was overshadowed by a regulatory crackdown in China that led to the suspension of a $37 billion IPO of its affiliate Ant Group and a $2.8 billion fine in April for anti-competitive business practices.

The fine led to a 7.66 billion yuan ($1.19 billion)operating loss in the fourth quarter ended March 31.

"The Penalty Decision motivated us to reflect on the relationship between a platform economy and society, as well as our social responsibilities and commitments," Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said in an earnings call.

Alibaba forecast annual revenue of 930 billion yuan ($144.12 billion) for the year ending March 2022, above expectation of 928.25 billion yuan.

Core commerce revenue rose 72% to 161.37 billion yuan in the fourth quarter. But growth at its cloud computing unit slowed to 37% to 16.8 billion yuan from 58% a year earlier, its weakest since at least 2016.

Alibaba said it was due to a top customer with a "sizeable presence outside of China" ending its business for "non-product related reasons."

Overall revenue rose to 187.4 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, topping a Refinitiv forecast of 180.41 billion yuan.

Alibaba's U.S. listed shares have fallen more than 30% since hitting a record high in late October when its founder Jack Ma delivered a speech in Shanghai criticizing China's financial regulators.

The sinking share price reflects investor anxiety over regulation, said Brock Silvers, chief investment officer at Hong Kong-based Adamas Asset Management.

"The company has faced rogue waves of regulatory risk, which now threaten the entire tech sector."

($1 = 6.4545 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; Additional reporting by Subrat Patnaik; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

State Street Corporation to pay $115M criminal penalty


BOSTON (AP) — State Street Corporation has agreed to pay a $115 million criminal penalty to resolve charges that it schemed to defraud clients by secretly overcharging some of its customers for as long as 17 years, federal investigators said Thursday.

All told, the Massachusetts-based global financial services company defrauded its customers to the tune of more than $290 million, investigators said. The company has agreed to fully reimburse victims of the misconduct for amounts they were overcharged.

“State Street defrauded its own clients of hundreds of millions of dollars over decades in a most pedestrian way: they tacked on hidden markups to routine charges for out-of-pocket expenses,” Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Nathaniel Mendell said in a written statement.

Investigators said that according to State Street’s admissions, between 1998 and 2015, bank executives conspired to add secret markups to “out-of-pocket” expenses charged to the bank’s clients while letting clients believe that State Street was billing expenses as pass-through charges on which the bank was not earning a profit.

The markups were charged on top of fees that the clients had agreed to pay the bank, and despite written agreements that caused clients to believe the expenses would be passed through to them without a markup, investigators said.

State Street executives also took steps to conceal the markups from clients, prosecutors said.

A spokesperson for State Street said the company entered into the prosecution agreement to resolve its previously disclosed inquiry into the overcharges of some customers for items billed as out-of-pocket expenses, which the bank said it disclosed in 2015.

“We regret these overcharges, which have also been the basis of prior settlements with regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission,” the company said. “We have also invested, and continue to invest, significant resources to improve and strengthen our invoicing processes, controls and governance.”

State Street has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement after being charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and agreed to pay the $115 million penalty. The company also agreed to continue to cooperate with the U.S. attorney’s office in any ongoing investigations.

Prosecutors said the resolution is based on a number of factors, including that State Street voluntarily disclosed the misconduct and fully cooperated with the investigation.

The company also said the amounts to be paid in connection with the agreement are included in a previously established reserve.

Steve Leblanc, The Associated Press

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALI$M
Vaccine waiver talks can make drug firms the heroes, U.S. trade chief says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said on Wednesday she is pushing for a waiver of COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property rights because the United States and drug makers have "an obligation to help save the world right now."

© Reuters/POOL Katherine C. Tai testifies before Senate Finance Committee in Washington

Tai, speaking at a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing, said she views the World Trade Organization talks as a way to remove the intellectual property issue as an obstacle to vaccine production. She backed the WTO negotiations last week.

She praised the work of U.S. companies in quickly developing and producing safe and effective vaccines, adding that on intellectual property, "The message that I want to give to them is, 'You can be a hero here.'"

Several Republican senators criticized Tai for "giving away" U.S. innovations to foreign competitors by supporting the WTO negotiations.

Tai said she views the talks to be less about preventing other countries from "stealing" U.S. technology and more about finding a way to have a positive impact on people's lives by ending the coronavirus pandemic.

"What we are trying to accomplish is the saving of lives," she said, adding that ending the pandemic is a necessary first step in any trade policy going forward.

"Unless we are able to bring the rest of the world's economies back online, there's not going to be a lot of upside for us in what we're going to be doing" on trade, Tai said.

India is experiencing a pandemic tragedy of "unimaginable scale" and South Africa, the other main proponent of vaccine waivers, has no facilities to produce vaccines and would need them to end the pandemic on the African continent, Tai said.

Negotiations at the WTO will take time, with a process for negotiations just starting now, Tai added.

She added that she did not see waiver talks as leading to a "slippery slope" of a broader erosion of intellectual property rights, as the current crisis is unique and threatening millions of lives. Such waivers on clean energy technologies would not be necessary to fight the crisis of climate change, Tai said.

Asked by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren whether USTR would support a broader WTO intellectual property waiver on COVID-19 treatments, therapeutics, protective equipment and other medical products, Tai said she is currently only focused on increasing vaccine access and equity.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Daniel Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)

Kansas City Southern to scrap CP deal after revised US$33.6-billion offer from CN

Kansas City Southern Inc. says it is terminating its merger agreement with CP Rail after determining that rival Canadian National Railway's revised US$33.6-billion offer was superior.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Under terms of the agreement announced Thursday evening, Montreal-based CN Rail will pay US$200 cash and 1.129 shares of CN stock for each of Kansas City's 90.9 million shares and assume US$3.8 billion of KCS debt.

"We are delighted that KCS has deemed CN’s binding proposal superior, recognizing the many compelling benefits of our combination and expressing confidence in CN’s ability to obtain the necessary approvals and successfully close the transaction," stated CN chief executive JJ Ruest.

"Our proposal offers a clear path to completion and is structured in a way that gives KCS shareholders both greater immediate value and the opportunity to participate in the future upside of the combined company."

The sum includes a US$700-million break fee payable to Calgary-based Canadian Pacific Railway.

The offer represents a 45 per cent premium over KCS's closing stock price on March 19.

Kansas City shareholders are expected to own 12.6 per cent of the combined company.

The U.S. railway said it has notified CP Rail that it intends to terminate its agreement after determining that CN's revised proposal constitutes a "superior proposal."

CP Rail now has the right to amend its offer, with the KCS board determining if any new proposal constitutes a better one than CN's.

Canadian Pacific downplayed the change of circumstances.

"This doesn’t make it any more likely that the CN proposal can close into a voting trust," the railway said after rumours of a revised deal emerged Thursday afternoon.

"We believe that CP’s negotiated agreement with KCS is the only true end-to-end Class 1 combination that is in the best interests of North American shippers and communities. CP-KCS is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only protect all existing shippers options but to inject new competition and capacity into the North American transportation system.

"Our mutually negotiated agreement with KCS represents compelling short term and long term value for shareholders that is achievable.”

CP Rail chief executive Keith Creel said two weeks ago that his company had no plan to increase its offer because he believed its offer is more likely to be approved by regulators.

However, transportation analysts expected the smaller of Canada's two main railways will have to increase its bid.

Either transaction would connect ports and railways in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

CN's updated transaction is subject to approval by KCS shareholders, approval by the U.S. railway regulator of a voting trust and other regulatory approvals.

CN Rail said it is seeking approval from the Surface Transportation Board for a voting trust and trustee that is identical to the one approved by the regulator for CP's proposed acquisition.

It said the CN voting trust is expected to close in the second half of 2021, with the total transaction expected to be completed about a year later.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:CNR, TSX:CP)

Ross Marowits, The Canadian Press

NATIONALIZE THEM

Greyhound Canada to cut all routes, end operations

Greyhound Canada is permanently cutting all bus routes across the country, shutting down the intercity bus carrier’s operations in Canada after nearly a century of service.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The motor coach company said its remaining routes in Ontario and Quebec will cease permanently on Thursday.

Its American affiliate, Greyhound Lines, Inc., will continue to operate cross-border routes to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver once the border reopens.

The decision comes a year after Greyhound Canada temporarily suspended all service due to a sharp decline in passengers and mounting travel restrictions amid the first wave of COVID-19.

The bus carrier has struggled for years with declining ridership, increasing competition and deregulation.

But the complete loss of so-called farebox revenue during the pandemic has forced the company to permanently cease operations, said Greyhound Canada senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick.

“It's been a very tough decision and one we've taken with a heavy heart,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview. “It's been a lifeline for many Canadians for more than 90 years. This will have a massive impact.”

The decision is a blow to rural and remote areas that rely on a patchwork of private intercity bus companies for transportation.

The service has long been part of a network linking smaller communities and big cities, offering an affordable and convenient mode of travel for everyone from essential workers and students to the elderly and backpackers.

Yet the rise in car ownership, ride sharing, discount airlines and urban migration has slowly eroded bus ridership, leading Greyhound Canada to gradually reduce the frequency of some services and cut other routes altogether.

"Private carriers are relying on the farebox revenue to maintain these rural routes," Kendrick said. "When ridership declines, we have a decision to make. We either cut the frequency, exit the rural markets or look for some help."

Citing declining ridership, deregulation and subsidized competition, Greyhound Canada suspended all operations in Western Canada in 2018.

Yet despite the ongoing challenges with its remaining routes, nothing could have prepared the company for the dramatic 95 per cent drop in passengers at the outset of the pandemic, Kendrick said.

Multiple coach bus companies teamed up and approached the federal and provincial governments for financial aid amid mounting COVID-19 restrictions. But Kendrick said they were referred to existing pandemic supports — what he called “negligible” for the beleaguered passenger transportation industry — prompting Greyhound Canada to temporarily suspend all service last May.

“There’s really been a lack of support," Kendrick said. “We don’t get subsidies."

Intercity bus carriers are also competing with publicly funded train and transit systems, he said, putting private companies at a disadvantage.

The Ontario government has also promised to deregulate the intercommunity bus industry starting in July, a move that would end Greyhound Canada’s control of certain routes.

“We have had exclusive private bus service on certain corridors,” he said, noting that it provided passengers with safe, frequent and affordable service.

"Greyhound Canada's tough decision today is going to have a massive impact on customers, especially those riding in the rural network."

About 260 employees were laid off after Greyhound Canada temporarily ended its passenger service last May. An additional 45 employees will be laid off as a result of the permanent closure, Kendrick said.

The Amalgamated Transit Union lamented the impact of the shutdown on workers and said it will leave thousands of people without transportation options.

"This is devastating news for the thousands of Canadians, especially those from Indigenous and First Nations communities, who have relied on Greyhound for transportation,” said the union's international president, John Costa, in a statement.

Greyhound plans to sell the bus stations it owns, Kendrick said. As for its leased properties, some of the agreements have expired or have an “out clause,” while it will honour the terms of leases it's obliged to continue paying, Kendrick said.

The company said tickets for travel after Thursday will be refunded. Customers with a valid travel voucher can also request a refund.

All Ontario and Quebec routes that were temporarily suspended in May 2020 will permanently end as of midnight on Thursday. The routes are:

- Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal

- Toronto-London-Windsor

- Sudbury-Ottawa/Toronto

- Toronto-Kitchener/Guelph/Cambridge

- Toronto-Niagara Falls

- Ottawa-Kingston

Riders across Canada said they were disappointed by Greyhound's closure, such as 68-year-old Robyn Brown, who used to take the Greyhound bus to travel to Toronto when she lived in Niagara Falls, Ont.

Now living in Vancouver, Brown has also used Greyhound bus routes to visit friends from smaller towns in British Columbia that aren't serviced by other forms of public transit.

Before the pandemic, she and her husband planned to take a Greyhound from Vancouver to Winnipeg to save on travel fare.

“I’m really sad to see that it’s going, I really am,” she said, adding that she would now fly to Winnipeg or Toronto if she wanted to travel between provinces.

Lisa Baril in Calgary said she has childhood memories of taking a Greyhound bus to visit her grandparents in Kelwood, Man.

As an adult, Baril said she would pick up her grandmother from the Greyhound station in Calgary whenever she’d visit.

“She would say (Greyhound’s closure) is a shame,” said Baril about her late grandmother. “She would probably get frustrated and say ‘well how am I going to see you guys now?’” Michael Clark, 35, from Waterloo, Ont., said that in college, he used to take the Greyhound bus almost every month to visit his parents in Kingston, Ont., from Ottawa.

“When I moved back to Kingston, I would take day trips into Toronto on weekends by catching the earliest and latest buses in and out,” he said, adding that he found the train too expensive and the Greyhound bus was an easy direct route for him.

He said the closure is “such a horrible loss” for smaller towns in Ontario, where the only way to travel outside the community is by car.

The pandemic has had a debilitating impact on Canada’s struggling intercity bus industry.

Coach bus companies have reduced service frequency or cut routes due to the precipitous drop in ridership, threatening to erode the country’s transportation network.

In January, senators from the Maritimes sent a letter to federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra urging Ottawa to provide financial assistance to Maritime Bus.

The Charlottetown-based company had warned that without funding, it would have to cut routes.

The senators said that with Via Rail service suspended and airlines slashing flights to the region, the bus was needed for essential travel, such as transporting blood products or patients to health appointments across the region.

In January, the New Brunswick government stepped in to provide $720,000 to the private regional bus operator to maintain service to Edmundston and Campbellton in the province’s north.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2021.

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press

BEZO'S OTHER BUSINESS
Whole Foods plans layoffs as part of reorganization involving merchandising, operations, HR, and tech teams
tsonnemaker@insider.com (Tyler Sonnemaker) 5 hrs ago

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© Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket 

Whole Foods is laying off some corporate employees as part of a reorganization, the company confirmed.

In a press release, it said the restructuring would impact merchandising, operations, HR, and tech teams.

Amazon-owned Whole Foods has seen an explosion of business during the pandemic.

Whole Foods is planning layoffs as part of a larger restructuring of its business, the company confirmed to Insider on Thursday.

Whole Foods told Insider that it expects the layoffs to impact a small, but at this point unknown, number of corporate employees, and that employees who work at its stores and distribution centers will not be impacted.

In a press release, the Amazon-owned grocery chain said it's planning changes involving its merchandising and operations, team member services, and technology teams in order to sustain its pandemic growth.

"These changes are designed to improve support for our stores and distribution centers as we remain committed to delivering an exceptional customer experience in stores and online," Whole Foods said in the release.

The company said it plans to merge its global and regional merchandising teams, "realign" its team member services group, and shift its technology team "to focus more on skills required for software engineering and technical product and program manager roles."

Whole Foods has seen explosive growth during the pandemic, with online grocery sales tripling during its second quarter of 2020 as the pandemic forced Americans to stay home.

The company has also faced pushback from its front-line store and warehouse employees, some of which who say it hasn't done enough to keep them safe from COVID-19 and have criticized its hazard pay and healthcare policies.

Mexico union was losing scrapped GM worker vote - report
By Daina Beth Solomon 

© Reuters/REBECCA COOK FILE PHOTO: Logo of GM atop the company headquarters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - General Motors Co workers in Mexico were on track to defeat one of the country's biggest unions in a contract vote last month that has prompted U.S. action under the countries' trade deal, a Mexican government report shows.

The Biden administration on Wednesday called for a probe into allegations that worker rights were denied at GM's Silao pickup truck plant during the vote to ratify workers' collective contract with the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM).

The CTM, which is aligned with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled Mexico for decades, is one of several traditional unions accused by workers and activists of putting business interests over workers' rights.

Mexico's labor ministry said on Tuesday it had found "serious irregularities" in April's union-led vote by the plant's 6,000 union workers and ordered a new vote within 30 days. Officials have said some ballots were destroyed.

A ministry report into the vote, reviewed by Reuters, shows that 1,784 workers had cast ballots against keeping the CTM contract, while 1,628 workers had voted to maintain it.

Allegations of interference - including the ministry's findings that some blank ballots in union possession were cut in half - have raised suspicions among some activists and experts that the CTM could have been in store for a deeper defeat.

A follow-up vote to be held within a month could yield a wider margin against keeping the current contract, especially if more workers who were apathetic or scared of voting turned out the second time, said labor scholar Alfonso Bouzas at Mexico's National Autonomous University.

"This whole new opportunity is going to awaken conscience and interest," Bouzas said.

The ministry document showed that just over half of the 6,494 people eligible to vote did so in the first of two voting days, before labor inspectors found the destroyed ballots and halted the process.

Many collective contracts in Mexico consist of deals between unions and companies without worker approval, one factor that has kept Mexican hourly wages at a fraction of those in the United States.

Ratification votes are now required under Mexico's 2019 labor reform, which underpins a renegotiated free trade pact with the United States and Canada, to ensure workers are not bound to contracts that were signed behind their backs.

GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but has said it respects the rights of its employees to make decisions over collective bargaining, and that it was not involved in any alleged labor violations.

Workers at other plants have also protested against the 85-year-old CTM, which represents 4.5 million workers, including in the border city of Matamoros and at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

The CTM's Miguel Trujillo Lopez union at GM is run by PRI politician Tereso Medina.

Medina and other CTM representatives did not reply to requests for comment. Medina told newspaper La Jornada last month that the organization was following rules to ensure a fair process.

If GM workers scrap their contract, either the CTM or a new union could negotiate new collective terms.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Christian Plumb and Richard Pullin

MLB players union seeks $500 million in grievance filed against the league

Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY 

Just in case there was any hope of optimism that the cold war between Major League Baseball and the players union might be thawing, along comes the news that the union has filed a grievance against MLB in response to their shortened season of a year ago.

© Charles Rex Arbogast, AP The 2020 MLB season was shortened to 60 games.

The Major League Baseball Players Association, just as they threatened last year, officially filed a grievance against MLB seeking about $500 million in damages, two persons with direct knowledge of the grievance told USA TODAY Sports.

The persons spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The grievance was first reported by the New York Post.

The union stated in the grievance that MLB did not act in good faith negotiating the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

The union had originally proposed a 114-game season after the COVID-19 shutdown, and later an 89-game season. MLB originally proposed an 82-game season with a sliding salary scale. Their proposal was reduced to a 76-game season at 75% prorated pay, and then to a 72-game season at 80% prorated pay.

The two sides failed to reach an agreement until commissioner Rob Manfred stepped in. He imposed a 60-game season, with the players receiving full pay, which amounted to players receiving 37% of their full salary. The teams wound up losing $3 billion, Manfred said.

The union, which vowed to file a grievance last summer, argues that MLB did not make the “best efforts to play as many games as possible’’ as required by their March agreement.

MLB, which filed a counter-grievance, said that the reduced schedule became necessary because of the pandemic, citing safety and health reasons.

The grievance, which is held by a three-person arbitration panel, could play a potential factor in their upcoming negotiations on their collective bargaining agreement which expires Dec. 1. The two sides have yet to engage in any serious negotiations, with their first meeting last month consisting of little more than slide-show presentations.

MLB could argue that any grievance could be a detriment in their economic proposals while the union could debate that it should play no factor given that MLB had dismissed any potential grievance as “frivolous’’ last summer.

MLB has asked that the grievance to be fast-tracked and resolved as quickly as possible to remove the cloud from negotiations.

It's the latest wrinkle in the strained relationship between the owners and players.

There are just 202 days remaining before their deadline. If no agreement is reached Dec. 1, and there is no deadline extension, there’s the distinct possibility of a work stoppage.