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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 1983)
Tuesday, August 30, 1983/The Battalion/Page 7 [Workers facing backlogs Cheating costs the U.S. Phone strike ends United Press International WASHINGTON — Tele phone operators and techni cians, their 22-day strike behind [hem, are back at work facing a backlog of requests for repairs pud installations put on hold vhile they negotiated a new con- llract. The strike — the second [longest in the history of Amer ican Telephone Sc Telegraph :o. — officially ended at 2:05 i.m. EDT Sunday, in time for 1)75,000 phone workers to re sume a normal business week for the First time since they talked off the job Aug. 7. The first crews, those man ning smaller weekend shifts, jtrickled into work by midmorn- Ing Sunday. Most of the strikers returned Monday. Tm happy to have a job to bine back to,” Lois Feist, a dire ctory assistance operator in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., said Sunday flight. “Welcome back” messages appeared on chalkboards at tele phone operator centers in Port land, Ore., and the company cafeteria was open at no charge Sunday to returning workers. In Wichita, Kan., CWA of fi cial Blanch Rose said, “We couldn’t move fast enough to get the picket signs down. We’re an xious to get back to work and get things back to normal.” Thelma Quenland of Tope ka, Kan., an operator for 17 years, said the strike “was no fun but I’m glad we held out, espe cially for the young people. They’re going to need it later on.” Charlie Fine, a CWA official in Oklahoma, said fellow union members are “tickled to death that we got an average-medium agreement” and are prepared for a lot of overtime work until the backlog is eliminated. AT&T spokesman Don McLaughlin said Sunday the company is “very, very glad it’s over.” The three unions represent ing AT&T workers won a tenta tive three-year national contract providing an estimated 16.4 percent average pay increase over the life of the agreement and improvement in job security. Strikers received little or no strike benefits and gave up three weeks’ pay, ranging from a gross loss of $600 for lowerpaid work ers to more than $1,680 for up per-bracket union workers. With supervisors filling in for striking employees, only- emergency installations and re pairs were made during the strike. Telephone officials pre dict it will take one to two weeks to catch up on the backlog. Although AT&T and the un ions representing Bell workers signed a tentative national agreement Aug. 21, workers re fused to return to work until all bargaining units had settled loc al issues. The strike ended when the final two CWA bargaining units settled local contract disputes with Bell of Pennsylvania and Western Electric’s installation division. The 525,000 CWA members, 100,000 phone workers in the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers and 50,000 workers in the Telecommunica tions International Union now must vote to ratify their local accords and the national agree ment. CWA expects to announce the outcome of its vote Oct. 8. United Press International ANAHEIM, Calif. — Amer icans have turned deceit into an “all-American pastime,” cheat ing on everything from diets to spouses and costing the govern ment $100 billion a year in lost tax revenues, a leading psycho logist says. Dr. Hattye Liston, associate professor of psychology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, painted a “blatant, grotesque picture of cheating” at the 91st annual American Psychological Association convention Sunday. “Cheating in America is epidemic and big business. It is a moral dilemma.” She cited statistics supporting her contentions: —Tax cheating exceeds an estimated $100 billion a year. —Pilferage costs department stores more than $4 billion annually. —An estimated $1 million is paid each year to welfare double-dippers. —Some 30 percent to 50 per cent of scholars sabotage exams, laboratory experiments and term reports or reprogram com puter tapes for bills and passing grades. —Students have defaulted on 14 percent of federal education al loans. —Extramarital lovers: “No definite figures but definitely epidemic proportions.” “Though the manifestations of cheating as an all-American pastime is evident in many places, and in so many ways, there is hesitancy among per sons to sound a public alarm,” Ms. Liston said. “To disclose improprieties is called whistle blowing. The stakes are high in whistle blow ing. Officials who alert Congress to graft, fraud, overspending, Abscam, etc. know they pose a threat to those whom they de nounce and that their own careers may be in jeopardy.” She suggested more frequent audits, better record keeping, stricter regulations and moni toring and FBI investigations in cases of serious fraud. Most important, she said, is the need for “positive moral growth” in society and public support for ethical conduct. i Tackitl White defies ell. United Press International DURANT, Okla. — When eteran astronaut Capt. Robert >ippen talks about space travel lis voice still reflects the excite- nent of youth. At 45, Crippen is a two-time Space Shuttle astronaut prepar- iigfor his third mission. He was :ommander of the Shuttle flight hat carried Dr. Sally Ride into tistory as America’s first woman istronaut to fly a space mission. “I’ve got a terrific job,” the freshnis leaumont native said recently er met 937, tiaracter art vhile visiting Oklahoma to tddress the United Press Intel- lational Editors of Oklahoma at riend,'agtfl -ake Texoma Lodge. •| t-y, I vegot the neatest job m the sident this count lay, a d at the pul e and mijohnsoi Invest Te« nt toj J’s first can vhole world,” he said. “I get to ly and they pay me for it.” Crippen says zooming into the unknown doesn’t scare him a That is the most unique, narvelous environment,” he iaid. “You couldn’t possibly be afraid of it. “Part of it is being familiar with what’s around you and the ituation,” he said. “I think most people are a little bit frightened of the unknown.” Astronauts “know what to ex pect pretty much,” Crippen said, “but you’re anticipating anything that can go wrong which means you’re sitting on the edge of your seat. He sees space travel as an adventure and though he does not believe in UFOs he is sure there are living beings on other planets. P.M- fl 1 £ «« Astronaut Robert Crippen says his job is “terrific” )it. “Statistically there has to be,” he said. Nothing compares to the thrill of being an astronaut for Crippen — not even meeting the President of the United States. “I thought it was very nice to get a chance to meet the presi dent,” Crippen said. “I would not describe that as exciting. I’ve had a chance to meet several heads of state. They’re nice gen tlemen but they’re just people.” Crippen’s major interest is the space program and what he sees as its merits. “You need a mechanism to force advancements in technolo gy,” Crippen said. “Wars, which are an awful thing, usually end up advancing technology and the space program also has done that.” He doesn’t buy the argument the United States should be spending more tax money to feed the poor instead of explor ing space. Currently, he said, welfare type programs receive about 50 percent of the federal budget, while the military gets 30 per cent and the space program gets one percent. “I claim that you could take all of that one percent that we’re spending and toss it into the other area and it would be lost and would not produce any sig nificant improvement,” Crip pen said. “But what we would end up losing from a technological standpoint would end up hurt ing this country very severely over the next 10 years,” he said. In addition, the astronaut contended, the space program’s share of the budget goes to jobs and is pumped back into the eco nomy. “That money is not going up in flames every time we shoot off a rocket,” he said. Crippen also sees the Space Shuttle as a point of pride. “One of the things that (astro- naut)John (Young) and I found out on the first flight was that the people of America needed something they could be proud of,” Crippen said. “We had been through so many things, like with Iran and what-have-you, that I think they just needed to say “we, the Un ited States, did that,”’ Crippen said. “They were very proud of it. I think they’re still proud of it.” There are other firsts Crip pen hopes to be a part of, and still others he sadly realizes he cannot. “Well, certainly I would have liked to have gone to Mars,” he said. “Someday, somebody is going to go. That’s certainly too far off (for me.) 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