A&M student designs software
for use in fishing tournaments
— Page 6
Condon's A&M spikers blast
bumbling sports media types
— Page 9
The Battalion
/ol 81 No. 5 GSPS 045360 22 pages in 2 sections College Station Texas Friday, September 6, 1985
bourt reverses comparative worth ruling
■ Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Business
■ups Thursday praised a federal
fleals court ruling as a crippling
■v to the concept of comparable
■th, while labor unions and femi-
Bleaders said they would continue
■ghtior thepayeouity idea in col-
^ve bargaining, legislation and
■Supreme Court.
The decision by the 9th U S. (iir-
■tl Court of Appeals in San Fran-
■u on Wednesday “makes our ef-
■s (on the pay equity issue in
Washington state) a little harder and
a little tougher,” said Gerald W'.
McEntee, president of the American
Federation of State, County and Mu
nicipal Employees Thursday. “We
recognize it as a setback.”
The union will appeal the ruling
to the Supreme Court and “we be
lieve that we have both the law and
equity on our side,” McEntee told a
news conference.
In contrast, Virginia Lamp, a la
bor relations attorney at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, said “com
parable worth is an idea with super
ficial and political appeal, but which
is now legally bankrupt” because of
the court decision.
Comparable worth, also known as
pay equity, is the concept of paying
men and women similar wages for
different jobs judged to be of similar
value to an employer.
In reversing the nation’s first
comparable-worth court ruling, a
three-judge appeals panel in San
Francisco said employers can use
prevailing market condition in set
ting wages, and need not follow sur
veys they commission.
In 1983, U.S. District Judge Jack
Tanner in Seattle held the state of
Washington liable for damages to
15,500 of its employees after a study
commissioned by the state showed a
20 percent salary gap between work
ers in predominantly female and
male jobs that required similar levels
of skill, mental demands, accounta
bility and working conditions.
Despite the ruling, McEntee said
that the union and Washington state
Zip ’85
Nancy Jumper, a Texas A&M senior journalism major from Lufkin,
applies for December graduation. Jumper got help from Liz Ranft, a
junior marketing major from Hamilton. Seniors must apply for grad
uation by September 13 in 105 Heaton Hall.
M/e pass system revised
New sticker issued without charge
By ANN CERVENKA
; Stall Writer
■Have you ever lost your shuttle
pus pass and had to pay $45 for a
pen one? As of this semester those
students who lose their passes will be
issued new ones without charge.
|;“If you lost your bus card last
tar, it was like losing a $50 bill,”
aid Carol Ellison, vice president of
|]ident services.
■ ‘Someone could pick it up and
|se it so you would have to go buy a
Mole new pass.”
IThis semester, a sticker is being
paced on the student’s I.D. card to
Dminate the hassle of carrying a
ieparate pass.
|“It was so easy to lose the pass,”
She said, “but people are m6re likely
to hold on to their I.D.s.”
■Ellison said she received com-
f daints last year from students
orced to buy new cards after losing
their original ones.
She said Bus Operations looked
into a new form of bus pass in pre
vious years. However, they decided
against the stickers because the cost
was more than paper cards and the
student I.D. cards did not have
enough room for such a sticker.
“All these things are kind of null
and void now,” Ellison said.
“For the convenience of the stu
dents, they thought it (the sticker)
was a good idea. It was what the stu
dents wanted.”
Bill Conaway, supervisor of oper
ations at Bus Operations, said in
most cases a student will be issued a
new pass without hassle. However,
as a safeguard, each case will be han
dled individually.
Conaway said when purchasing a
pass, each student must present his
fee slip and I.D. card.
The student’s name, I.D. number,
bus pass number, address and
phone number are placed into a
computer.
“It (issuing new passes) is not a
blanket policy 1 ,” he said.
“But if a person loses a pass and
comes to us, we will run his name
through the computer and then
most likely issue another pass.”
However, if a person’s name is on
the computer more than one time,
indicating that he may have been
picking up new stickers and giving
them to other people, Conaway said
the matter will be turned over to the
University Police.
“To stop fraud, we have our own
little plan,” he said.
The stickers are placed next to the
picture on the I.D. cards so that the
passes can only be used by one per
son.
“It doesn’t make sense to try to
pull some game with us,” he added.
Conaway said the new passes will
eliminate some of the problems en
countered last year, such as several
people using the same pass.
“It’s a lot easier for us to issue
them and for the students to pick
them up,” he said.
“It also helps the students because
if they lose it they don’t have to buy a
whole new pass.”
Conaway said the stickers cannot
be taken off without being torn,
therefore preventing several people
from using the same pass.
The cost of the pass is the same as
last year, $44.50.
Cookbook proceeds benefit library
By CYNTHIA GAY
■ Staff Writer
■Somethin’s cookin’ at the library,
Bd, thanks to the Dallas County
A&M Mothers’ Club, Texas A&M
students shortly will get a broader
Pnd more thoughtful taste of Texas
pnd its history.
■The dub’s “Hullabaloo in the Kit-
Men” cookbook has made such a hit
■th Aggies in the past two years that
He members are passing along the
wofits to A&M, said Bonnie
■issler, vice president at large and
■airman of the club’s cookbook
TOmmittee.
Inspired by a series of Battalion
articles on the plight of needed li
brary funds, she said the club de
cided to make Sterling C. Evans Li
brary the target of its second gift to
the University. Last year the mem
bers completed a $25,000 Presi
dential Endowed Scholarship fund.
The club will officially donate an
other $25,000 to the Sterling C.
Evans Library this fall, intending
that the money will buy Texas-re
lated materials and enrich the li
brary’s mutual endowment fund.
Current President Peggy Erickson
and Leissler will make the joint pre
sentation on Oct. 12.
“The money will be very well
spent,” said Charlene Clark, devel
opment and promotion coordinator
at the library.
She said the new materials will be
on the shelves and on microfilm by
the beginning of the spring semester
“so that students can see benefits im
mediately.”
Leissler, last year’s club president,
said she was motivated to prompt
the mothers to help out the library
by The Battalion articles printed last
November by staff writer Donn
Friedmann, lamenting the relatively
small portion of Texas A&M funds
that went to the library.
“When I saw how much t.u.
spends compared to A&M, that
really caught my eye,” Leissler said,
adding that each year the club presi
dent receives a subscription to The
Battalion.
Clark said that all library materials
purchased with the club’s gift will
contain a special bookplate based on
a James Avery jewelry design used
by the Dallas group. She added that
pure coincidence is bringing the
Texas material to campus just in
time for the Texas Sesquicentennial,
the 150th birthday of the state.
See Library, page 5
officials have agreed to proceed next
Monday with previously scheduled
talks on a possible out-of-court set
tlement on the lawsuit, filed by
AFSCME in 1982.
“I think the word is shock,” McEn
tee said of his reaction to the ruling.
But he stressed that more than 20
states have begun to conduct studies
or have implemented some form of
comparable worth.
About half of the rank and file in
AFSCME, the largest union of pub
lic employees, are women.
The wages of working women na
tionally are just 68 percent of men’s
wages, the Labor Department says.
The wage gap is closing, but not fast
enough to quell the debate over
comparable worth.
“We intend to break out of the
ghetto of low wages . . . one way or
another,” Eleanor Smeal, president
of the National Organization for
Women, said in a speech at the Na
tional Press Club.
Reagan takes
tax campaign
on road
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. — President
Reagan resumed his campaign for
an overhaul of the income tax sys
tem Thursday, playing the under
dog challenging the vested interests
he says are the enemies of change.
“The special interests may think
they have this one locked up tight,
and we may be starting this battle for
tax fairness as underdogs,” Reagan
told more than 13,000 students and
faculty members at North Carolina
State University.
But Reagan said he wanted to re
mind “the nay sayers, people who
tell you it can’t be done .. . that this is
America, and there are no limits ex
cept those that we put on ourselves.
“A lot of cynics in Washington are
laying odds against our fair snare tax
plan,” Reagan said. “Our plan has
too many enemies, they say, enemies
among those with a vested interest in
the status quo — ‘status quo,’ that’s
Latin for the mess we call the pre
sent income tax.
“The present system, with all its
shelters and loopholes, is not only
unfair, it’s dumb economics,” the
president said in the university’s
sweltering Reynolds Coliseum.
Although many of the provisions
he now complains about were ini
tiated or expanded by his massive
again
1981 tax cut bill, Reagan’s new plan
generally would lower individual tax
rates, notably for those in the high
est brackets, while eliminating many
of the deductions and credits that
give preferential treatment to partic
ular groups.
While Reagan didn’t name the
nay sayers to whom he referred,
leading members of both parties in
Congress have been skeptical about
the prospects for passage of a major
tax overhaul plan this year.
House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill
Jr., D-Mass., told reporters as the
House returned from recess
Wednesday, “I found very little sen
timent for the tax reform bill”
among business executives or aver
age citizens. The people on the
street — they never even mention it.
Rep. Dick Cheney, R-Wyo., chair
man of the House COP Policy Com
mittee, expressed a similar view, say
ing most members he has spoken to
found tax revision low on their con
stituents’ lists of legislative priorities.
The president, displaying his best
campaign style, took off his suit
jacket and stumped for his plan,
cheered on by a roaring, foot-stomp
ing, crowd reminiscent of the mass
audiences Reagan drew a year ago
during his drive toward a landslide
re-election victory.
Discovers of Titanic
fear exploitation
of sunken wreck
Associated Press
WOODS HOLE, Massachu
setts — Researchers who found
the wreck of the Titanic headed
for hortie Thursday with the chief
scientist promising he was bring
ing back “spectacular” film from
the expedition.
The Navy-owned research ship
Knorr, operated by Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, was
scheduled to dock Monday at this v
Cape Cod town.
Officials said Dr. Robert Bal
lard, chief scientist on the U.S.-
French mission, will try to ar
range a return trip, possibly next
summer, to explore the sunken
luxury liner in a manned sub
mersible known as the Alvin.
Woods Hole of ficials said there
is concern the future may bring
scavengers to the wreck site,
about 560 miles off Newfound
land.
“Ballard is very concerned with
the exploitation of the Titanic,”
said William Marquet, senior en-
ineer at the Woods Hole Deep
ubmergence Laboratory, which
is headed by Ballard. “Wreck-ru
ining destroys archaeological
finds.”
Dr. Robert Spindel, head of
the Woods Hole Ocean Engi
neering Department, said numer
ous questions must be answered
before another visit to the wreck
is scheduled.
“Mainly, it’s a matter of safety.
But also it’s a question of what
you could learn about it,” he said,
adding that possible reasons for
inspecting the ship in a manned
vessel would be the chance to
learn more about such things as
corrosion and preservation.
“We don’t know that much
about the preservation of things
at the depths of the sea floor,” he
said.
Asked how Woods Hole could
1 safeguard the Titanic, he said:
“We’ve tried not to release the ex
act position of the ship and the
exact depth of the find. But we
heard aircraft were in the vicinity.
I don’t think there is anything we
can do about that.”
He said Woods Hole would act
to protect the Titanic only if
someone were to try to salvage it.
“We’d have to appeal to a higher
authority to ask them that the Ti
tanic remain where it is, as it is.”
John P. Eaton of New York,
historian of the Titanic Historical
Society, said the site should be
“protected by some international
group and be kept free of all ma
rauders.”
Filming since the wreck was
found Sunday was done by a vi
deo camera aboard the Argo, an
unmanned submersible devel
oped by Ballard.
Ballard said the explorers had
not seen the stern of the ship.