national
Battalion/Page 5
July 6, 1982
Warped
By Scott McCullar
PAMAf IT*. I DON'T THINK I
jCAtf TAKE AN1 MORE SUMER
SCHOOL. THE TESTS, THE PACE,
I THE STUDYING, I TOST CAN'T
60 ON LIKE.... MAIL?
£2,
DEAR MERRITT,
TOST A QUICK NOTE. NE WENT
TO SEE “£.T" THE OTHER
NIGHT, AND lOU KNO\N THE
PART WHERE HE IS LOST
AND ALL HE WAVTS TO DO
IS GO HOME ?
WELL, / THOUGHT of you,AVD|
I JUST WAITED TO WRITE
AMD TELL YOU HOW MUCH
I MISS VOU AMD LOVE YOU.
mom
Nuke plants unsafe,
Nader group says
Other nations do better
in inflation-fight: report
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A con-
Igressional study says other na
tions are doing a better job than
[the United States in lighting in-
I flation.
Joint Economic Committee
IChairman Rep. Henry Reuss, D-
[Wis., said Monday “other in-
[dustrialized nations have
learned that a climate t)f cooper
ation and consensus in the fight
[against inflation is far superior
ito economic policy which fates
[millions of workers to unem
ployment lines.”
He said leaders of some na-
Jtions “use all the tools available
[—ranging from the art of per-
[suasion to outright wage and
[price controls — to keep infla-
[tion at an acceptable level.”
The study, prepared by the
Congressional Research Service,
examined the wage and price
policies of Australia, Austria,
Canada, Japan, the Netherlands
and West Germany.
Reuss said each country
sought to have a wage and price
policy that minimized the social
and economic costs imposed by
anti-inflation policies, which
succeed by creating an economic
slowdown and unemployment.
Australia monitored prices
and wages; it was only the use of
compulsory arbitration that
held down inflation and fore
stalled labor strife.
The report said Austria’s
Joint Commission on Wages and
Prices went beyond controls to
become “a system of economic
and social partnership” that has
been a major factor in damping
inflation and in avoiding “debili
tating swings” in the Austrian
economy.
Canada, the report said, has
alternated periods of voluntary
policies with periods of manda
tory controls and found controls
“became increasingly unpopu
lar the longer they lasted.”
Japan’s experience with infla
tion, the report said, appears to
be the most interesting because
it has been able to maintain “re
markable price stability” at the
le
consumer level.
The island nation has sup
plemented traditional monetary
tools with price controls and a
system of labor relations that
keeps wages in line with changes
in productivity.
Perhaps the best lesson to be
In West Germany, the report
said, there is a greater “spirit of
cooperation and trust” between
management and labor than in
many other countries — prob
ably due in part to a “fear of
social conflict” and in part to
cooperation born in “the need to
rebuild the war-torn economy of
the 1940s.”
Labor Department bureaucrats
sidelined, paid for no work
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The
[Reagan administration, at tax
payers’ expense, has sidelined
19 highly paid career Labor De
partment policy experts in a
move said designed to increase
the number of political appoin
tees in career jobs.
The veteran bureaucrats
Rave been assigned little or no
work for the past nine months —
at a cost to taxpayers of
$600,000.
One of the employees said he
and several colleagues — paid
$40,000 to $50,000 a year —
spent much of their office time
recently reading newspapers,
phoning their stockbrokers or
discussing their futures over
coffee.
Labor Secretary Raymond
Donovan issued a directive re
quiring 16 of the officials to be
transferred to new jobs June 28
— putting many of them in roles
in which they have no expertise
or prior experience.
Several of those involved
charge the transfers are an illeg
al attempt by the administration
to increase the number of poli
tical appointees in key posts.
But Assistant Labor Secretary
John Cogan argues the transfers
were forced by a reorganization
of the policy office and budget
cutting moves.
Several employees, who re
quested anonymity for fear of
reprisals, said they got no re
sponse when they asked for
work. One said he felt the admi
nistration doesn’t trust the
career officials to carry out its
policies, although many worked
in their jobs during the Nixon
years.
At least one lawyer in the
Office of Personnel Manage
ment and an aide to a House civil
service subcommittee say it is im
proper and probably illegal to
deny work assignments to career
specialists.
Cogan denied any political
motivation, but said, “I want to
say candidly that I do believe
that a policy shop in any depart
ment should
fraction of its staff being people
who are political appointees.”
He said the transfers were
necessary because the policy
office’s research role was trim
med and its staff reduced from
56 to 40.
have at least some
Among those reassigned are
two officers of Local 12 of the
American Federation of Gov
ernment Employees, represent
ing 5,000 to 6,000 employees at
the Labor Department’s head
quarters building.
SEPTEMBER 11
COUNTRY & WESTERN
DANCE LESSONS
at
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of
Dance Arts
THERE’S STILL
TIME TO PREPARE,
Registration — Wednesday, July 14
7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Classes start Wednesday, July 14
at 7:30 p.m.
Private lessons available
Call for more information
107 Dowling Road 693-0352
Call Days Evenings & Weekends
-H.
Classes
start
Educational Center
TEST PREPARATION
SPECIALISTS SINCE 1938
CALL 696-3196
July 11
FOR MORE INFORMATION
707 TEXAS AVE. 301-C
SUMMER II COURSES
Basic Mechanics
Bartending
Astrology
Jitterbug
• Dancercise
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^ MSC Main Hallway 4
learned from the Netherlands,
the report said, is that control of
inflation is less dependent on
the government’s power to set
prices and wages than “on de
veloping a consensus between
employers and unions that their
own best interest will be served
by accepting the interrelation
between wages and prices and
by attempting to maintain a ba
lance between them.”
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A Ralph
Nader group has charged that a
draft of a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission study records 141
nuclear plant incidents that
could have led to a meltdown
between 1969 and 1979 — one
of which was at Three Mile Is
land.
A meltdown, which did not
occur at Three Mile Island,
would occur if overheated reac
tor core fuel rods melted.
Theoretically, the rods would
then melt through the reactor
base and into the ground, lead
ing to a large, hazardous release
of radioactivity.
Richard Udell, a nuclear safe
ty analyst for Public Citizen’s
Critical Mass Energy Project,
said the study showed “nuclear
power plants are riddled with
design errors and their opera
tion plagued by equipment fai
lures and human errors.”
The Jan. 15, 1981, study was
done at the Oak Ridge, Tenn.,
National Laboratory for the
NRC’s Division of Systems Relia
bility Research.
The researchers screened
18,000 “events” — most of
minor significance — reported
by plant operators and gave 400
incidents a “detailed review.”
According to the draft, “141
events were ... potential accident
precursors (to severe core dam
age).” The incidents were distri
buted among 58 reactors, some
of which are no longer oper
ating.
Donald Winston, spokesman
for the Atomic Industrial
Forum, the main nuclear indus
try association, said the law re- *
quires reporting of minor inci
dents, such as blown fuses, that
are “significant only because
they apply to a nuclear plant.”
He said between 2,500 and
3,500 such incidents are re
ported yearly.
According to the Oak Ridge
draft report, almost all the inci
dents involve one of four acci
dent scenarios:
•Loss of main feedwater. In a
nuclear reactor, feedwater flows
into a reactor vessel, where heat
turns it into steam to generate
electricity. Feedwater also per
forms a safety function by re
moving heat from the reactor
core. Loss of feedwater can lead
to overheating of the core.
•Loss of coolant, caused by a
leak or valve problem, also can
lead to overheating of the reac
tor core. At Three Mile Island,
in Middletown, Pa., a coolant
loss in 1979 damaged 90 percent
of the uranium fuel reactor
reactor could cause an excessive
temperature drop in water that
cools the core. If heat is carried
away too fast from a reactor,
operators may have difficulty
stopping the atomic chain reac
tion.
•Loss of offsite power. When
a nuclear plant must shut down,
it relies on other plants — offsite
electricity — to power its safety
systems. If offsite power is lost,
diesel generators at the nuclear
plant are relied upon for backup
power.
Top Drawer
from Basics to
Designers
•Steam line break. A break in
the main steam line of a nuclear
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