f deai t'ernra he hoi e Ink msri matffl ever y- Wednesday, January 18, 1984/The Battalion/Page 3 AT8cT split to raise rates By KAREN WALLACE Staff writer General Telephone cus tomers in Bryan-College Sta tion may see an increase in loc al rates and monthly phone access rates by April 3, GTE representative John Wallace said Tuesday. These increases, a result of thejan. 1, divestiture between American Telephone and Telegraph and Southwestern Bell, are necessary to make up for the loss of long distant ser vice, Wallace said. Wallace explained that prior to the breakup long dis tance service was more expen sive for the customer to use than lor GTE to provide. The opposite was true of local rates which were less expensive for the customer to use than for GTE to provide. The excess revenue from long distance rates was used to help pay the local rates. With the divestiture, AT&T became a long distance service, and GTE became a local service, he said. Now, GTE has no alterna tive but to raise the local rates to help pay for the loss of long distance revenue, said Phil Dole, AT&T representative in Austin. "There’s really nothing else to do,” Dole said. F, Lanet Greenhaw, regional public relations manager from AT&T, said an in- creased phone lease rates ^Iso are needed to help with the loss of revenue. The smallest increase, from $1.25 to $1.50, will be for the traditional tele hone. The largest increase, Tom $3.60 to $4.60, will be for the trim fit telephone. “One thing that is unique is that a person doesn’t have to lease a phone from the same company that provides your service,” Greenhaw said. Greenhaw said that another reason for the in crease is leasing prices are no longer regulated. Prior to the divestiture, leasing prices were established by the Public Utility Gommission in Texas, she said. “AT&T committed to an average national price, and decided to maintain that price for two years,” she said. These two years would give the customer time to look at all the options and would give AT&T a chance to ease into the competition market, she said. “It gives the consumers and AT&T a chance to adapt to the transition from regula- tion to competition,” Greenhaw said. “It was a situa tion we recognized years ago.” School systems blamed for low scores United Press International EL PASO — Low Scholastic Aptitude Test scores are brought about by a failure in the state educational system, not the influx of minority students, Texas Education Commissioner Raymon Bynum said Tuesday. Bynum faulted the state’s educational system after a re port prepared by the U.S. De partment of Education showed minority students traditionally have received lower SAT scores. SAT scores are used by colleges and universities to determine which students will succeed at higher education. Texas Hispanic leaders criti cized Bynum when he allegedly blamed an influx of Hispanic students in the state for the low SAT scores in Texas. Bynum said he was mis quoted both by television repor ters and reporters for the San Antonio Light. “I said that our failure to ade quately meet the educational nee^ s . °* m i nor ity people is re- spopsible for Texas scoring so Jq W ’’ Bynum said. j^tate Sen. Carlos Truan of Corf ,us Lhristi, who was critical of By nur «. he would give the commissioner the “benefit of the a°ubt.” j-jy. Ernesto Perez, director of the ]jilmg ua l Education Train- ing Technical Assistance NetvV or k at l be University of T ex3 * at El Paso, said Bynum is maki^S no effort to support bilingual education programs in Texas schools. Perez said bilingual educa tion is important because Hispa nic students who speak only Spanish learn English as quickly as possible to succeed in school once they have mastered the lan guage. Bynum said bilingual educa tion is “working very well” in El Paso but that it is too early to tell whether students who partici pated in bilingual education will succeed when they enter college. Perez said the low SAT scores is the responsibility of the Texas Education Agency. “The true fault now and al ways has been with the Texas Education Agency,” he said. “The agency should look at it self, at its leadership, at its curri culum, and then see where the blame actually should go. The blame should be nowhere else but on the agency and on its leadership. Judge says Continental had no choice in reorganization rtayor eacher conflict United Press International HOUSTON — A bankruptcy judge Monday sided with Con tinental Airlines and against three striking labor unions, who had charged the beleaguered carrier had filed for Chapter 11 reorganization to ban unions from the company. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge R.F. Wheless Jr. said in a strongly worded statement that the com pany had no alternative but to file for reorganization. “This court finds that the Continental Airlines group filed their respective Chapter 11 pro ceedings for the purpose of attempting to keep the com panies alive and functioning and that they had no other viable alternative to that end. “The unions have not satisfac torily demonstrated that there was any reasonable alternative under which the airline would keep operating, and this court finds that there was not,” Whe less said. The battle between Continen tal and the Air Line Pilots Asso ciation, the Union of Flight Attendants and the Internation al Association of Machinists be gan in September when Con tinental filed for reorganization. The company stopped flying for two days, and then resumed flying a reduced schedule with one-third of its employees work ing at half pay. A spokesman for ALPA said the union would definately appeal the judge’s decision. “We are disappointed and we plan to file an prompt appeal,” said ALPA spokesman Dick Smith. “I think it demonstrated that Continental sought a bank ruptcy ruling to rid itself of the union contract,” Continental spokesman Bruce Hicks said the company was pleased with judge’s deci sion. ‘‘This ruling definitively states that Continental has acted in the best interest of our em ployees, our shareholders, cre ditors and the traveling public,” said Hicks. “The court has stated that Continental has acted in good faith in order to preserve jobs and provide a viable future for this 0i r li ne ar, d its employees. Aftef countless hours of testi mony’ hundreds of thousands of p<*S es corporate papers turn£“ over to union attorneys and the deposing of key man- agen» ent officials, the court’s de cision * s a clear sign that we did what we fi ac ^ to to save Con- tinen ta h” Hicks said. Sjpce September when Con tinent 3 * filed for reorganization, the company has denied any atteitipt to bust the unions, which 11 s fi** recognizes. It said it filed f° r protection because it lost million between 1979 and 1^83, would have run out of cash by l he end of 1983 and had financial problems on many fronts- -fhe company argued the strikiOS labor unions did not undef sta nd the seriousness of Conti nenta l s financial prob lems 2 nc l rejected the company’s efforts to persuade them to ^ make a 9 u ick $150 million in 0 conc^ ss i ons that might have 0 avoided bankruptcy. ^ I/^M went on strike Aug. 13 after contract talks failed. I I 1 0 S.W. Parkway JtokWmj apartments 693-6540 Large Enough To Live In. That’s Just the Closets! b X You Also Get 3 Large Bedrooms. OPEN DAILY SUNDAY - SATURDAY Managed by Brentwood Properties C3 United Press Internationa] rc-ng :ofH( gethfl JUAREZ, Mexico — Mayor fandsco Barrio, fearing a vio- ed, vi« tut confrontation between left (TOTfs; ling teachers and police, Tues- ^ lay called on American tourists ’ ostay away from the border city 1 , lexl Saturday. ernslH ma y 0r ’ s warning, dis- eminated to news media in El aso, drew angry comments rom Apemio Jayme Salazar, " enf iresident of the Juarez national ) enfoi hamber of commerce, who cal- ngalu ed for the mayor to maintain studti irder or resign. The protesting teachers are members of a leftwing union Los Democraticos,” who have ieen critical of administrative idicies of the federal Secretar- at of Education. The teachers ay the agency shows favoritism n promoting teachers to admi- le hail listrative positions and accuses idministrators of corruption. Some 28 teachers were Fired Q rll j three months ago when they re fused to accept transfers, claim ing the agency discriminated against them. They are seeking reinstatement. Teachers, together with the . Comite de la Defensa Popular, g to» :he Committee of the People’s ipiltct Defense, has joined with the teachers and have announced a massive protest demonstration through the streets of Juarez on Saturday. CDP leaders say they and the teachers will block international bridges and tie up commerce be tween Juarez and El Paso. The mayor, in response to inquiries from officials at Fort Bliss, advised all Americans to stay home Saturday for their own safety, even though the protest has nothing to do with the United States or American policy. A spokesman for the Mex ican federal police said force will be used to keep the international bridges open. Police hinted the Mexican army may be called out to control the demonstration if Juarez anti-riot police can not handle the situation. In a hurriedly-called news conference shortly after noon, the mayor and members of the Juarez national chamber of commerce reaffirmed that the international bridges linking the two cities would be kept open at all costs. <4? Q AUDII If IE IB. 21- 23 APPLICATIONS AVAILAPLC HSC 21C DLL LLP. 3 4