S'
They’re Here!
The 1988 Aggieland
Where: The English Annex
When: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Bring your school I.D.
plastic covers available for 50 4
Page 16
The Battalion
Thursday, November 3,1988
World/Nation
Attorney general implores courl
to uphold mandatory drug tests
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Su
preme Court, confronting drug testing in
the American workplace for the first
time, was urged by Attorney General
Dick Thornburgh and his top courtroom
lawyer on Wednesday to uphold manda
tory tests for many railroad and Customs
Service employees.
The importance attached to the pair of
cases by the administration was under
scored by Thornburgh’s participation,
marking the first time that an attorney
general appeared before the high court
since President Reagan took office. He
was joined by Solicitor General Charles
Fried.
Former Attorney General Edwin
Meese, Thornburgh’s immediate prede
cessor, observed the arguments from the
spectator seats.
“This is a case about railway safety,”
said Thornburgh, who presented the ad
ministration’s position in a dispute over
mandatory blood and urine tests for rail
road workers after accidents or rules vio
lations.
He said the case was about the hazards
created by the use of drugs and alcohol
by people “in charge of trains.”
Thornburgh stumbled a few times
when the justices asked him about some
of the specifics of the testing program.
“I’m not going to palm myself off on
this court as an expert,” Thornburgh
said.
He last argued before the high court in
1977 when he headed the Justice Depart
ment’s criminal division. The last time
an attorney general argued before the
justices was in 1980, when Benjamin
Civiletti presented the Carter administra
tion’s side in a Nazi deportation case.
If Thornburgh encountered some
problems Wednesday, his opponent in
the case appeared to fare even worse.
Sharp questions were repeatedly di
rected at Lawrence Mann, an attorney
for the railway workers who said the
drug tests are unconstitutional because
they are incapable of proving on-the-job
impairment.
“Neither the alcohol nor the drug test
can demonstrate impairment,” he said.
For example, he said, the tests can show
residue from a drug that may have been
taken 60 days prior to the test. ”
Justice Antonin Scalia asked if it
weren’t reasonable for the railroad to
want to know if someone responsible for
train safety has “cocaine traces” in his
system.
Justice Anthony Kennedy asked
Mann: “The public has no interest in
knowing about chronic drug use as long
as the worker is not using drugs on
duty?”
Justice Thurgood Marshall scolded
Mann for spending too much time attack
ing the reliability of urine tests as op
posed to blood tests.
“You have to win on both tests,'
shall said. “Aim at both of them.”
Fried, the administration’s topt
room lawyer, defended the Custa
Service program in which urine tests;
required for anyone applying fora
motion or transfer to a job involving!
enforcement.
There is an “urgent and symbolic
nificance” in assuring the public tka:
agency responsible for preventing
smuggling has a drug-free workfoJB
Fried said.
Benefactor
for Marcos
to post bail
Nation’s productivity on rise
despite second quarter drop
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s
productivity rose by an annual rate of 1.3
percent from July through September,
the government said Wednesday, revers
ing a second quarter decline when new
employment had outpaced increases in
goods and services.
But analysts cautioned that the long
term trend of anemic productivity growth
offers little hope for lifting Americans’
standard of living or increasing U.S.
competitiveness overseas.
Output of goods and services by non
farm businesses rose at an annual rate of
2.8 percent in the third quarter, while the
number of hours worked increased only
1.5 percent, the Labor Department said.
But the over-the-year productivity im
provement has been only 0.8 percent, the
government said. Revised figures
showed that productivity dropped 2.4
percent in the second quarter — much
worse than the 1.4 percent decline esti
mated previously.
Larry Chimerine, chairman of the
WEFA Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa. con
sulting firm, said, “Despite the strong
growth of the economy over the past
year, there’s still no significant change in
a the weak trend in productivity that
we’ve seen since 1973.
“Productivity growth averaging 1 per
cent a year remains this country’s major
economic problem,” he said. “Until we
get it on a stronger upward trend, we’re
not going to see any increase in real
wages or in our international compet
itiveness.”
Unit labor costs rose at an annual rate
of 4 percent in the second quarter on
hourly wage and benefit increases aver
aging 5.4 percent annually. Last year,
businesses were able to restrain their la
bor cost increases to only 3.1 percent,
with a 3.8 percent increase in hourly
compensation to workers.
Roger Brinner, an economist for Data
Resources Inc. of Lexington, Mass.,
said Americans can expect to see a pat
tern in the near future in which produc
tivity gains offset only a small portion of
recent increases in wages.
Manufacturers, which account for
one-fourth of the nation’s economic out
put, continue to fare much better that
businesses generally in both improving
their productivity and in keeping a lid on
labor costs.
NEW YORK (AP) — Imelda Mat-
cos’s quest for a benefactor endec
Wednesday when tobacco heiressDn
ris Duke agreed to put up the $5 rail
lion needed by the former first ladyd
the Philippines to secure her bail oa
racketeering charges.
Duke will post more than $5 rail
lion in municipal bonds as bail lot
Marcos, who is accused along witk
her husband, former Philippine pres:
dent Ferdinand Marcos, of lootiii|
more than $100 million from thee
homeland.
Lawyers said the bonds would ac
tually be worth between $5.3 milliot
and $5.4 million depending on mat
ket fluctuation, although the exact
types of bonds were not revealed.
“It was Miss Duke’s idea to help,'
her lawyer, Donald Robinson, said
after a hearing before U.S. District
Judge John Keenan in Manhattan,
Marcos, 59, who has been stayitt
in an $1,800-a-day suite at the Wal
dorf-Astoria Hotel, did not attendtk
court session.
High style
and savings!
Embossed
leather
jackets
NOW
199.99
Save 50.00 on three contemporary
styles. All crafted of premium quality
leather that will keep its beauty for
years. Shown, the one-button blazer
with embossed design. And the
embossed black blazer with self-tie
belt. Not shown, the red, fly front
embossed bomber jacket with
banded bottom. Each, in sizes s-m-1,
orig. 250.00, now 199.99
Dillard’s
i
Ts
N
SHOP DILLARD S MONDAY THRU SATURDAY 10-9. SUNDAY 12-6: POST OAK MALL. HARVEY ROAD AT HIGHWAY 6 BYPASS. COLLEGE STATION 764-0014. AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD WELCOME.
M