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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1988)
Texas a m W # The Battalion Vol.88 No. 3 CJSPS 045360 20 Pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, August 31, 1988 Eastern cutback gets approval, 4000 jobs saved Your attention, please! Photo by Mike C. Mulvey Scholastic Sargent Toney Buzbee, a junior from Texarkana, instructs new members of the Corps of Cadets must be taught the proper Freshman Alex Winslow on the proper form of the hand salute. All methods of Drill and Ceremony. ‘Blue flu’ threatens to plague WASHINGTON (AP) — A fed eral judge on Tuesday stopped East ern Airlines from firing 4,000 em ployees but allowed the financially strapped carrier to go ahead with cutting back service to 14 cities on Wednesday as planned. Eastern said it will go ahead with the cuts and will eliminate its hub in Kansas City. “Massive layof fs are not, and shall never be business as usual,” U.S. Dis trict Judge Barrington Parker said in a 50-page opinion. “The Railway La bor Act requires Eastern to bargain with its unions before taking unilate ral action to eliminate 12 percent of its workforce.” He signed a preliminary injunc tion that bars Eastern from “altering in any way the status quo working condition of Eastern’s pilots, ma chinists and flight attendants.” A trial in the matter will be scheduled later. Eastern President Phil Bakes called the decision “gravely wrong” and said the carrier would file an emergency appeal. “Eastern, like any American busi ness, must be allowed to prune money-losing operations,” Bakes said in a statement released at East ern’s headquarters in Miami. “We must be able to take prudent, al though sometimes painf ul, measures in the best interests of the company and our employees.” Lawyers for the three unions that brought the court action against Eastern submitted financial statements and Parker ordered bonds of $25,000 each to indemnif y the airline if the decision is reversed. Meantime, the airline said, “East ern’s basic fall schedule remains in tact. Travel agents and pasengers can continue to book flights with full confidence that the schedule will be as announced.” “This is a case of protecting work and protecting jobs,” said James Lin- sey, an attorney for Air Line Pilots Association. He said the decision “doesn’t second-guess the business decisions of Eastern Airlines to fly SAN ANTONIO (AP) —Two of the state’s three uninsured banks will close their doors by the etid of De cember, pulling a curtain on the era of private banking in South and Central Texas, officials say. D&A Oppenheimer Bank of San Antonio has asked customers to withdraw their funds and move ac counts to other banks by Dec. 31. The Farmers and Merchants Bank in Priddy also has set a similar dead line. That will leave the E.L. Price Bank of Galveston as the only re maining private bank in Texas. “It makes us feel unique,” said Tom Hill, cashier of the Price Bank. But Jesse Oppenheimer, co owner of the San Antonio bank, has a different feeling. “I’m sort of sad about it because it was started by my grandfather and it’s got a reputation all across the country,” he said. “It's been sort of an interesting antique f or some time now.” Oppenheimer s brother, Herbert, co-owns and operates the bank and wants to retire. "His son is not in it and mv son is from Point A to Point B or to limit service in particular cities.” Asked what Eastern might do with thousands of employees it claims not to need, Linsey replied: “They get transferred, like any company trans fers employees from one plant to an other.” Parker wrote that Texas Air Gorp., which bought Eastern in 1986, “has exerted every effort to curb union influence at Eastern and to reduce wage rates and economic benefits previously obtained.” He said there were many “indica tions of anti-union bias” and that Frank Lorenzo, chairman of Texas Air, had expressed that view on many occasions. “Since the acquisition of Eastern by Texas Air, Eastern’s management has contributed to ELastern’s finan cial instability,” the judge wrote. “ Through a series of business deci sions, management has led the com pany into a number of questionable loans and questionable ventures which have drained off cash reserves and other assets.” The centerpiece of the opinion was that Eastern could not proceed with the mass firings. Parker did not dwell on the airline’s plans to close its Kansas City hub and cut service to 14 cities. The airline claimed it would save $50 million by the service termi nations and $7 million in payroll. It would cut 140 of its 1,225 daily flights and sell between 33 and 41 airplanes. The cities Eastern targeted to cut are Albuquerque, N.M.; Fort de France, Martinique; Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Okla homa City; Omaha, Neb.; Dallas; Poime-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; Reno, Nev.; San Antonio, Texas; San Diego; St. Lucia, West Indies; Tuc son, Ariz., and Tulsa, Okla. Parker said there is no question that the cutbacks are motivated by sound financial reasons. not m it. We’ve run out oi laimiv. Jesse Oppenheimer said. “Plus it's sort of an obsolete organization to day. It's not like yesterday, when things were done on trust and conf i dence. Today, it’s all balance sheets and statements.” Eleanor Gromatzky, co-owner of the Priddy bank in Mills Countv, said increasing state regulations were among the reasons the bank will be closed. “I’ve just surrendered. I fought just as hard as I could,” she said. “This is just a real small bank and I just wanted out. “Regulatory authorities have made it practically impossible for a small bank to continue bv requiring detailed reporting and (with) regula tions that require expensive electro nic equipment in order to comply,” she said in a letter to customers. Private banks are not insured bv the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures deposits at other banks up to SlOO.OOO per per son in each of four account catego ries. Larrv Chilton, an examiner with HOUSTON (AP) — Officials of the nation’s fourth-largest city are bracing for a possible bout of “blue flu” Thursday when members of the 4,200-member Houston police force may call in sick to protest pay cuts and rising insurance premiums. Police Chief Lee P. Brown has urged the heads of the city’s two largest police organizations to de nounce the wildcat action, but the leaders say Brown has admitted it would be difficult to prove who was and wasn't sick. The threat of a “sickout” is the lat est in an ongoing dispute between police and the city adminstration. the 1 exas Banking Department, said private banks usually are “typically family held, one-owner type situa tions and they serve the needs of themselves plus other close business associates and family members. I hey are not out engaging in public banking business as other banks are.” Brothers Dan and Anton Oppen heimer created the Oppenheimer Bank in 1858, operating from a store front in downtoyvn San Anto nio. The bank has moved twice since then. The bank, however, remained small, with an estimated 300 custom ers in recent years. The bank didn't pay interest on deposits, made very feyv loans and had only a handf ul of safety deposit boxes. But it did have its advantages. “You didn’t have to deal yvith bank examiners. It yvas a very inde pendent yvav of doing business,” Op penheimer told the San Antonio Light. “You could buy anything from a rat skin to a ranch, and no body could do anything to criticize you.” A flier circulating among police officers urges them to participate Thursday in a protest of rising medi cal insurance costs and a 3 percent pay cut, and Browm is making con tingency plans in case a large num ber of police officers call in sick. A disclaimer on the flier says the action is not sponsored by the Hous ton Police Patrolmen’s Union or the Houston Police Officers Association, and HPOA President Mark Clark said what happens Thursday is up to the of ficers. “I think this time the mayor has thrown enough gasoline on the fire that, unfortunately, it’s really out of my hands and out of Mark’s hands,” agreed Tommy Britt, president of HPPU. “I don’t know what (officers) are going to do Thursday.” Britt said this is the first time he can remember police officers se riously threatening an organized strike. Texas law prohibits firefighters and police of ficers from engaging in a strike against the governmental agency that employs them. If found guilty of violating the state law, they can be terminated. ‘It’s certainly our desire that all of our police officers continue to un derstand their responsibilities under their oath of office . . . and would not be involved in anything that would constitute an illegal job ac tion,” Brown said. Houston Whitmire, long a target of con tempt by police officers, said she be lieves officers will consider the wel fare of the people of the city. “I know Chief Brown has made some plans, but I think, like me, he believes the officers will act profes sionally,” Whitmire said. “I think that I and my board and Mark (Clark) and his board are hon estly concerned about what is going to happen Thursday to the safety of this city,” said HPPU’s President Tommy Britt. “But I don’t think the mayor does because she’s ignored the city’s most valuable asset, and that’s its people.” Jet disaster leaves 6 dead in Hong Kong HONG KONG (AP) — A Chinese jetliner carrying 89 people skidded into the sea off the runway at Hong Kong’s airport in pouring rain Wednesday, and six people were killed, the government said. Flight 301 from Canton, the capi tal of China’s Guangdong province about 90 miles northwest of Hong Kong, crashed at about 9:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. EDT), government-run Radio Television Hong Kong re ported. At least three of the dead were re covered from the wreckage of the plane, which was immersed in the sea, the radio reported. Officials said the aircraft was a British Aerospace Trident. Earlier reports said it was a Boe ing 737. “It fell into the sea at the end of the runway,” police spokesman Tony Leung said. The Government Information Services said 83 people were rescued and 13 were hospitalized. Solidarity leader holds labor talks to end strike GDANSK, Poland (AP) — Solida rity founder Lech Walesa will hold his first talks with the Polish leadership in six years Wednes day in a government effort to end two weeks of labor turmoil, his advisers said. Walesa will confer in Warsaw with Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak at a meeting attended by a representative of the Roman Catholic Church but will not call off the strike at his shipyard in Gdansk, the advisers said. The announcement resulted from four days of maneuvering started by Kiszczak’s proposal on Friday that officials and worker representatives hold “round-ta ble” discussions. A communique from the Com munist Party’s ruling Politburo, distributed by the official news agency PAP, mentioned a round table meeting, endorsed it and said Kiszczak should “carry on with the mission entrusted to him.” It was not clear, however. whether the reference was to the Wednesday meeting or the min ister’s original proposal on Fri day. No other official reference was made to the Walesa-Kiszczak talks. Ten enterprises in Poland re mained on strike Tuesday. At its height, the current labor trouble involved 20 sites employing 100,000 people and was the worst since 1980. Solidarity spokesmen said there was no agreement for an immediate end to the strikes, in which a central demand has been making Solidarity legal again. It was suppressed after the declara tion of martial law in December 1981 and outlawed in 1982. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a senior Solidarity adviser, called the deci sion for talks “a historic mo ment.” On Tuesday evening, Walesa left the strikebound Lenin ship yard, where he works as an elec trician, to confer with advisers. Two uninsured Texas banks set for closure by end of year ‘Greenhouse effect’ may be inevitable WASHINGTON (AP) — A group of climate researchers has warned that the “greenhouse effect” warming of the Earth will continue even if there are sharp cutbacks in the use of the chemicals which cause the problem. The heatup “appears to be inevitable, even with . . . drastic, and probably unrealistic re ductions, of greenhouse forcing” bv the re lease of carbon dioxide and other gases, the scientists reported in the Journal of Geophy sical Research-Atmospheres. The group, led by James Hansen ol the National Aeronautical and Space Administra tion, reached that conclusion after running computerized climate models in an effort to predict the climate in the future. The models looked at the effect ol chemi cal releases at three different levels: continu ing rapid release of the chemicals, as in recent years; release at slower rates, and a drastic cutback in those chemicals. In the First case, the Earth’s average tem perature was calculated to rise bv 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit within 20 years. It would take 25 years for that increase in the second model. And even with the drastic “and probable unrealistic” cutback in chemical releases, the temperature would rise that much event uallv. and probably would climb by 0.8 degrees within 15 years, according to the study. The greenhouse effect has drawn increas ing concern recently, although most meteo rologists contend that it is too early to deter mine if it is responsible for the cut rent drought and hot weather affecting much of the nation. It occurs when carbon dioxide, largely from burning fossil fuels, and other gases — such as methane and nitrogen oxides — in crease in the atmosphere. These gases let in coming heat from the sun reach the Earth, but block the Earth’s own heat from traveling into space, much as a greenhouse traps heat indoors. As the gases become more abundant. more heat is trapped anu the planet s icmpei - ature rises. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported late Tuesday that global concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased by 25 percent since the mid-1800s. Pieter P. Tans of NOAA’s Boulder, Golo., laboratories said concentrations of the gas now top 350 parts per million in the atmo sphere, up from about 280 parts per million in the mid- to late-19th century. Analysis of air trapped in ice cores indicates little, il any change, in carbon dioxide for many centuries before that time. Earlier in the summer that the current hot, dry conditions are an example of things to come. In particular, he noted in the new report, while the average increase in global warming doesn’t sound like a lot it means increasing frequency for hot summers. The chances of any particular summer being hotter than nor mal would top 50 percent, compared to a 33 percent chance of the past. Such a change would be large enough to affect the quality of life, Hansen and his co authors reported. For example, they noted that over the past 30 years, Omaha, Neb., experienced a run of five or more consecutive days with a high of 95 degrees or more on an average of 3 times in 10 years. The climate model predicts that this could increase to 5 years out of 10 in the 1990s and 7 years out of 10 by 2020. Such an increase in the number of runs of hot weather can damage corn and other crops, Hansen warned, and can also affect forests, water supplies, animals and people. A warming of 0.8 degrees in a decade is faster than any found in historical studies and is thought to be faster than most plants are able to accommodate. “We emphasize that it is the possibility of rapid climate change which is of most con cern for the biosphere,” wrote Hansen and his co-authors. Government spokesmen at the scene said the remaining six people were confirmed dead. Phone calls to the Chinese airline did not get through. It was not immediately known if the flight had any foreign passen gers. The Kai Tak International Air port runway juts into Hong Kong’s famed Victoria Harbor, and the plane was possibly broken in half, the radio reported. The radio reported that helicopt ers were ferrying some of the res cued passengers to military hospitals and that an emergency treatment center was set up at the airport. All incoming and outgoing flights were canceled, the radio said. There was no immediate indica tion of what caused the accident. Initial reports from the gover- ment indicated that the exact num ber of passengers on the plane at the time of the crash was not known be cause the airline did not confirm the passenger list.