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Page 2
CAREER FAIR
offers counseling and
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Page 5
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The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 78 College Station, Texas “Serving Texas A&M since 1893” 8 Pages Friday, January 24, 1992
Experts say Americans work harder, longer than Japanese
WASHINGTON (AP) - People who
study the U.S. work force say Japan's
Yoshio Sakurauchi got it just about all
wrong when he said “inferior ... lazy"
American workers are the cause of this
country's competitive troubles.
The U.S. economy has its troubles,
these observers say, but the American
worker is not the cause.
“American workers work very hard
and try to work even harder; the thing
that impresses me is how hard they'll
fight just to get a lousy job," said former
U.S. Labor Secretary Ray Marshall.
Still, there were enough home truths in
what Sakurauchi, speaker of Japan's low
er house, said over the weekend to cause
squirming in this country.
Economists said he was on target in
□ L. A. County cancels $122 M
Japanese contract in backlash to
criticism of U.S. workers/ Page 4
suggesting America isn't training workers
for the skills needed to make the work
place operate at its most productive level.
Sakurauchi, who said later he had been
misunderstood, was quoted as telling his
constituents that the source of America's
competitive problem “is the inferior qual
ity of U.S. labor," 30 percent of whom, he
said, cannot read. “They want high pay
without working," he said.
The charge is simply off base, said
Stephen Cooney, international investment
director for the National Association of
Manufacturers. And the proof, he said, is
that in the last five years “we've doubled
our exports of manufactured goods; in
virtually every industry we've gained
market share against all other industrial
countries."
Jeff Faux, president of the Economic
Policy Institute, which studies economic
growth, said Sakurauchi was “all wet" in
his comments on the American worker.
“People are working harder, and hard
er for less," Faux said.
Since 1970, he said, the average Ameri
can in manufacturing worked 38 hours
more per year while the Japanese worker
worked 114 fewer hours per year and the
German workers 286 fewer hours.
But he said Sakurauchi was on the
mark in suggesting that America's prob
lems lie here, not overseas, and in saying
that the United States is becoming Japan's
“subcontractor."
"It's true: We're supplying Japan with
inputs, with raw materials and they're de
signing and manufacturing the final
goods. The Japanese have been moving
over here to assemble components pro
duced in Japan," he said.
The problem with that, he said, is that
high wages go to the production workers
of the world, not the assemblers.
Marshall laid America's competitive
problems largely on management systems
that use too many white-collar and ad
ministrative workers and too many in
spectors and supervisors. This discour
ages production workers from using their
creativity.
The point, he said, is illustrated by the
joint General Motors-Toyota venture in
Fremont, Calif.
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ORTRUN GINGRICH/The Battalion
Get a leg up...
Senior Karl Lockett (center), a political science major, looks on as senior Torey Dangerfield’s boots. This freshman privilege is a
freshman Amit Bhavsar, a freshman from Ft. Worth, takes off way to honor senior Corps of Cadet members.
Health care policies decline in U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly 36 million
Americans under the age of 65 were without
public or private health insurance in 1990, a
private research organization reported
Wednesday.
The report by the Employee Benefit Re
search Institute said the figure increased to 35.7*
million from 34.4 million in 1989. The percent
age also rose, from 16.1 percent in 1989 to 16.6
percent in 1990.
Persons 65 and over were not counted be
cause 96 percent of them have Medicare cover
age.
The institute said a decline in employment-
based insurance coverage, perhaps the result of
increased unemployment and higher health in
surance coverage, was a primary cause of the
increase in the uninsured.
Dallas Salisbury, president of the institute,
said the figures indicate that health insurance
is likely to be an issue in this year's political
campaigns.
"The pollsters for some time have said that
health care in the context of politics is really an
issue of the 'haves,' not an issue of the 'have
nots,' and politicians will move towards action
when the 'haves' begin to hurt," he said.
"What this survey and the most recent num
bers indicate is that the 'haves' are beginning
to hurt."
In the early surveys, he said, the percentage
of insured people with incomes above $50,000
per year and full-time worker families contin
ued to climb.
From 1988 to 1990, he said, an erosion of the
insured rate in these categories began.
The report said that 6 percent of people in
families with incomes above $50,000 were
uninsured, compared with 55 percent of those
in families living on less than $20,000 a year.
The uninsured rate among families headed
by a full-time, year-around worker rose from
12 percent in 1989 to 12.5 percent in 1990.
The institute is supported by corporations,
financial institutions, associations, labor orga
nizations, pension plans and professional ser
vice organizations. It gathers and analyzes in
formation on health care financing.
Salisbury said the organization does not ad
vocate particular policy changes.
N ations
unite to aid
republics
U.S. leads international effort to relieve
former U.S.S.R. with supplies, advisors
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
world's wealthiest nations agreed
Thursday ou a global effort to help
the emerging nations of the former
Soviet Union. Secretary of State
James A. Baker III said U.S. Air
Force planes will fly 54 shipments
of emergency medicine and food
to the former Soviet republics next
month.
Baker said the first C-5 trans
ports in Operation Provide Hope
will leave Frankfurt, Germany, on
Feb. 10.
Baker said the shipments will
go to each of the 12 new states
emerging from the wreckage of
the Soviet Union.
He said the Air Force flights
would take one or two weeks to
complete.
"It's fair to say we truly have a
global effort," Baker said at a
news conference closing a two-
day 47-nation conference con
vened by the United States to co
ordinate aid to the former Soviet
Union.
“Above all. Operation Provide
Hope can vividly show the peo
ples of the former Soviet Union
that those that once prepared for
war with them now have the
courage and the conviction to use
their militaries to say, 'We will
wage a new peace,"' said Baker.
“We are no more enemies: we
have become friends," said Man
fred Woerner, secretary general of
NATO, the military alliance
formed to block Soviet aggression
in Europe. NATO will provide lo
gistical support to the aid effort.
The participants will send rep
resentatives to Minsk next week to
brief leaders of the former Soviet
republics on the progress made to
ward sending them aid.
Germany Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscner said, "We
have to do everything in our pow
er to do away with weak spots in
the food supply."
“Operation Provide
Hope can vividly show
the peoples of the former
Soviet Union that those
once prepared for war .. .
have the courage and
conviction to use their
militaries to say, ‘We will
wage a new peace.’”
- Sec. of State Baker
A follow-up conference will be
held in Lisbon, Portugal within 90
to 120 days. Japan also has offered
to host a third meeting.
Baker called- the conference
“just the start of a continuing ef
fort to intensify and coordinate a
global response to this emergen-
cy -"
Baker said other U.S. contribu
tions to the aid effort would be
shipping Department of Defense
excess medical stocks, establishing
partnerships between U.S. hospi
tals and their Soviet counterparts
and providing logistical support
to American private sector groups
shipping food and medicine.
The United States will also put
up to 3,000 farm volunteers on the
ground, create a training program
for grassroots democracy with up
to 500 participants and establish a
foundation for training in leader
ship and management.
Dallas Council backs Number crunching
anti-gay hiring code Japan utilizes statistics to out-produce U.S., speaker says
DALLAS (AP) — Gay rights ac
tivists were disappointed in the
Dallas City Council's decision to
keep a controversial anti-gay hir
ing ban, but most remained confi
dent the decision would be over
turned this month.
The council in a 10-5 vote
Thursday decided to keep the ban
in place as long as the Texas
sodomy law remains in effect. A
state appeals court is expected to
decide later in January whether to
uphold a lower court judge's rul
ing that the law is unconstitution
al.
"I was disappointed that they
didn't show the courage and lead
ership to remove the questions
from the application and poly
graph," said John Thomas, execu
tive director of the Dallas Gay Al
liance. "But I think the law will be
overturned."
If the Texas 3rd Court of Ap
peals upholds state District Judge
Paul Davis' December 1990 deci
sion, the 112-year-old law would
be overturned and th& basis for the
police ban removed.
The council's decision, reached
at 2 a.m. Thursday after listening
to scores of gay rights activists and
anti-gay advocates, allows police
to continue to discriminate against
hiring homosexuals.
However, the decision also calls
for a 90-day review of the depart
ment's application which asks offi
cer candidates to admit whether
See Gays/Page 4
By Karen Praslicka
The Battalion
Japanese assembly industries
are ahead of those in the United
States partly because of the strong
statistical foundation in Japanese
industry, an expert in statistics
and quality and productivity said
Thursday.
Dr. Stuart Hunter, president
elect of the American Statistical
Association, visited A&M for the
first time and spoke to the South
east Texas Chapter of the ASA
about new methods in statistical
monitoring.
During a press conference be
fore the speech, he discussed
American and Japanese produc
tivity. Hunter said the Japanese
were told not long after World
War II by a famous U.S. statisti
cian that quality and productivity
go hand in hand.
"The Japanese were told that if
you have quality, productivity fol
lowed," Hunter said. "This is
what they've been doing."
But Hunter said he is not wor
ried about reports that U.S. prod
ucts cannot match the quality of
Japanese products.
"There's so much talent right
here," he said. "If industry wakes
up, things will progress rapidly."
Hunter said he would like to
see U.S. industries using more
statistics and using more modern
problem solutions. He said the
statistical tools used by most in
dustries were developed about 50
years ago.
"Lots has happened since
World War II that's not being
used," Hunter said.
Assembly industries in Ameri
ca, such as the automobile and
electronics industries, are less ad
vanced in statistical methods than
other industries such as pharma
ceuticals, he said.
Another part of the problem
facing U.S. industries is that no
new solutions are being devel
oped, Hunter said. American in
dustries are basically importing
back technology from the
Japanese that was developed in
the U.S.
"But you don't win by playing
catch up," he said.
Hunter said there are simple
statistical tools available that
could improve U.S. assembly in
dustries, but the industries are re
luctant to use them.
"In another five or ten s years,
they'll be hearing about these
things from foreign tongues," he
said.
The perception that American
workers are lazy compared to
Japanese workers is untrue - U.S.
society is simply rich. Hunter said.
A rich life is not a criticism, be
cause Americans have worked just
as hard and are just as resourceful
as Japanese workers, he said.
4*
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