Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 96, Greencastle, Putnam County, 28 December 1983 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 28,1983

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Map shows seven geographic regions of Bell breakup Regional companies to send bills?

By WINSTON WILLIAMS c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service CHICAGO The American Telephone and Telegraph Co. said Tuesday that it was close to agreements with all seven regional holding companies that would retain the companies as hilling and collection agents on long-distance calls after the Jan. 1 breakup of the Bell System. The first such contract for billing services was signed Tuesday. Under terms of the Jan. 1 divestiture, in which AT&T is detaching its local operating companies, the parent company may either set up its own billing system or turn to large banks, credit card companies and other billing services for help. But a spokesman, Maureen Dvorak, said AT&T would use the regional companies for at least another year to avoid the confusion of customers’ getting separate bills for local and long-distance service. When the breakup becomes effective, the local operating units of the seven new holding companies will be responsible for providing local and most intrastate telephone service, while AT&T will have the long-distance business. Because of the changed regulatory environment, there had been talk of AT&T going to unrelated companies for such services as billing. Today, however, Ameritech the Middle Western holding

New system will hurt Hoosier libraries

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) work faces a financial crunch when American Telephone & Telegraph imposes access charges on long-distance lines next month. The network’s director says increases in costs for such state or regional library computer networks as that of the Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority have been estimated at 86 to 90 percent. The state provides $200,000 of the cooperative’s $300,000 annual budget. Most of the money goes for leased telephone lines linking a statewide computer network. “Bills in Congress to prevent assessment of access charges (Hi long distance assume only two kinds of customers, the public and industries,” Barbara Macuson, cooperative direc-

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company that includes Bell subsidiaries in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin said it had signed a threeyear “model contract” to 1 andle AT&T long-distance billing. Mrs. Dvorak said that AT&T was not considering any bids from non-Bell companies and that more contracts would be signed later this week. “We have all the equipment and the systems are in place,” James J. Howard, president of Ameritech, said in an interview. “If AT&T started from scratch, they would have to build a system from scratch.” Ameritech said its revenues from AT&T under the agreement were expected to total S7OO million over the three years. Ameritech’s revenue from each call depends on a variety of factors, but the company said it expected to reap about 12 cents from the average long-distance phone call placed from its service area. In return, Ameritech will maintain records of its customers’ long-distance calls. It will also process payments and handle customer billing inquiries for AT&T. Howard said the contract would aid the company’s planning by guaranteeing a steady stream of income. Ameritech added that it was negotiating with other longdistance phone companies to offer them the same service. It said it expected to begin billing services for some of them next year.

tor, said. “Because of the new telecommunications technology, some of the larger users are universities, school systems, medical systems and libraries. We are caught in the middle. “We will have a problem when the line charge goes from S4O a month to $l4O a month. Who will pick up the additional $160,000 a year?” One of the largest users of the network is Indiana University. IU librarian Elaine Sloan said proposed increases in the cost of leased lines will have a heavy impact on an already distressed library budget. The proposed increases in private telephone line costs pose a threat to every researcher in the state and to any plans the cooperative had for expanding its use to the public.

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Death toll at 6 in Buffalo propane blast

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Firefighters combed the smoldering ruins of a residential neighborhood today for more victims of a propane gas explosion and fire that killed at least six people, injured 43 and leveled a city block, officials said. Five firemen and a resident were known dead in the blast at a warehouse Tuesday, and another fireman was missing, officials said. Of 43 people taken to three hospitals with injuries ranging from severe burns to broken

Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All" USPSI42-020) Consolidation ot Tho Daily Banner Established ISSO Tha Herald Tha Daily Graphic Established IM3 Telephone 653-5151 Published daily except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapera, Inc. at 100 North Jackson St, Greencastle, Indiana 46135. Entered in the Poet Office at Greencastle, Indiana, as 2nd class mail matter under Act of March 7,1070. Subscription Rates Par Week, by carrier *i oo Par Month, by motor routa *4.55 Mail Subscription Rates R.R.In Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months *13.00 *14.15 *17.2$ 6 Months *27.60 *20.30 *34.50 1 Year *55.20 *56.60 *69.0r Mail subscriptions payable in advance not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Asaoclated Press Tha Associated Press Is entitled eiduslwiy lo the use for rapubllcation of all the local news printed in this newspaper.

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Closing of steel plants eliminates 15,400j0bs

PITTSBURGH (AP) - U S. Steel Corp.’s plan to do away with 15,400 jobs at 73 plants proves "the futility” of union concessions to save jobs, an angry labor leader said, but the company called its action “unavoidable.” David Roderick, chairman of the nation’s biggest steelmaker, announced Tuesday that six plants in the Northeast will be closed, probably by April 1984, and others, including the big South Works near Chicago, will be mostly shut down. The reductions will save U.S. Steel about $650 million in aftertax writeoffs and will likely boost earnings next year by SIBO million to S2OO million, Roderick said after the company meeting. “Everybody must be competitive. And if any of us fail to

Production capacity to be increased Bright side to situation at Gary

GARY, Ind. (AP) A union official for U.S. Steel’s Gary Works says he is “upset” at the firm’s announcement six of its money-losing domestic steel plants will be closed and that operations will be reduced at Gary and 23 other facilities. But Phillip Cyprian Sr., president of United Steel Workers Local 1014, said there is a bright side. The company plans to install a second continuous caster at Gary, increasing production capacity for strip steel. Cyprian said construction of the caster, projected to be finished by 1986, is “positive in that we’ll be competitive. ” He said the company unsuccessfuly sought contract concessions for the new caster and charged that U.S. Steel is now “contracting out” jobs at Gary Works departments the company said would be closed by April. U.S. Steel said Tuesday it will eliminate 15,400 jobs nationally as part of the consolidation and cutback effort. It also said it has broken off talks on an investment and steel-importing deal with Britain. The six steel plants to be closed are Lora in-Cuyahoga, near Cleveland; Ambridge, Pa.; Johnstown, Pa.; Shiffler, in Lawrenceville, Pa.; Elmira, N.Y.; and Trenton, N.J. Other plants, including the South Works near Chicago, will be mostly slut down, the company said. Donald Stazak, president of USW Local 65 at South Works, said he was “grateful” the 103-year old plant won’t be closed as rumored. He said he was “very disappointed ” a rail mill under consideration for the plant won’t be built but he defended the local’s decision not to grant additional rail mill concessions. “You win one and lose another,” he said. William K. Peck, U.S. Steel’s Gary Works spokesman, said Tuesday 1,095 jobs will be lost when the firm shuts down 11 major facilities and some miscellaneous equipment in April at the northwestern Indiana division. The Gary Works began operating in 1908. The division’s work force, which peaked in 1959 with 25,000 employees, is now 14,000, Peck said.

bones and cuts, five were listed in critical condition. The blast hit around 8:30 p.m., just minutes after three fire trucks arrived in the neighborhood east of downtown to check a report of a propane leak around a bakery supply building and an adjacent fourstory brick warehouse, Battalion Fire Chief Michael Angrisanosaid. About 15 firefighters were searching for the leak in and around the warehouse when the building exploded with two jarring blasts felt up to 15 miles

Lilly defendant in Louisiana case Oraflex lawsuit asks SIOO million

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The family of a Louisiana woman ha» filed a SIOO million damage suit against Eli Lilly and Co., alleging she died two months after she began taking the antiarthritis drug Oraflex. Lilly introduced Oraflex in the United States in the spring of 1962 but withdrew it voluntarily in August of that year after deaths in Great Britain of people using the drug. The suit filed Tuesday by the family of Mary Bernice Verzwyvelt, 82, said she died in an Alexandria, La., nursing home July 14,1982. Attorney Earl C. Townsend

do that, any facility is in jeopardy,” Roderick said. But some union members accused the company of betraying workers, especially after the United Steelworkers Union agreed to a package of givebacks in their latest contract in March. “It just seemed to whet their appetite. It wasn’t enough,” said Jerry Guido, president of Local 2670 in Trenton, N.J. Roderick said the cuts were prompted by high labor costs and by competition from Third World steelmakers, such as Brazil and South Korea. He called the reductions “unavoidable in light of global economic and market conditions.” U.S. Steel lost $487 million in the first three quarters of this year.

away. The warehouse, bakery and several houses in the same block were demolished, and windows were broken half a mile away. “I thought that a nuclear war had hit. I thought the Russians pulled one of them buttons,” said Clinton Holloman, 56, a resident who heard the first fire trucks arriving and was leaving his house to see what was happening when the explosion knocked him down. “If I had gotten there, I probably would have been one of those killed,” he said, adding

Jr. of Indianapolis, who filed the suit in a county court here, said Louisiana law allows Mrs. Verzwyvelt’s two sons and two daughters to recover for her “conscious mental anguish and physical pain prior to death, as well as their own anguish, grief, shock, sorrow and loss of love and affection.” Under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a case may be tried in one state according to another state’s law if notice is given in the lawsuit. Under Indiana law, the family would not be able to collect damages for their mental anguish or the deceased’s, Townsend said.

The plants to be closed are Cuyahoga near Cleveland; Ambridge, Pa.; Johnstown, Pa.; Shiffler in Lawrenceville, Pa.; Elmira, N.Y.; and Trenton, N.J. After the announcement, U.S. Steel stock rose five-eighths of a point to 29% in active trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company had warned of the closings Dec. 7 and said then some jobs could be saved through cost-saving measures at individual plants. But the union, having negotiated an estimated $3 billion worth of concessions over 3% years, accused 3teel companies of provoking “job wars” between individual locals and adopted a policy against any additional givebacks.

Cyprian estimated among the 1,095 jobs to be eliminated in Gary, 80 percent in 16 departments are now held by union members, and the rest are spread among unionized clerical workers in three sheet and tin mill departments that have been closed for some time. Tuesday’s announcement doesn’t mean 1,095 Gary employees will lose their jobs, because some workers are expected to take early retirement, Peck said. The major facilities to be closed at Gary Works are: a rail mill, three bar mills, a forge shop, a billet mill, the No. 10 blast furnace, a 42-inch continuous pickle line, a tie-plate mill, a 44inch blooming mill and a foundry and pattern shop, Peck said. Other operations affected include stainless operations, hot rolling eqiupment and sheet and tin equipment. Cyprian said that U.S. Steel has approached the union for work rule and manning changes at the new caster during a half dozen recent meetings. “I told them no preconditions” he said. “Not after what they did to South Works.” The reductions at U.S. Steel should have no effect on Evansville steel companies, industry officials said. Richard Herr, a vice president at International Steel in Evansville, said the economic conditions in the steel fabricating industry would have to increase tremendously before any impact would be felt. Shelby Steel Manager Robert Claycomb said the company buys about 10 percent of its steel from U.S. Steel. But he said Shelby Steel will not be hurt by the cutbacks. “There’s plenty of capacity now without U.S. Steel,” Claycomb said. Chairman David M. Roderick said that “while the decision to suspend operations at the affected units are difficult for the employees and communities involved, they were unavoidable in light of global economic and market conditions in steel. Roderick cited non-competitive labor costs as “an important factor” in the company’s decisions. U.S. Steel lost $487 million the first three quarters of this year.

that only his hair was singed. The debris crushed one fire truck and heavily damaged two others. Thirty-eight homes were damaged, according to James F. Casey of the American Red Cross. A kneehigh layer of rubble covered the street in front of the warehouse. It was not immediately known what ignited the blast. It was also not known what the warehouse contained. Sarah Hampton was in the kitchen of her home across the street from the warehouse and had “just finished washing

He said the suit asks SIOO million because that figure was used in the first Oraflex related lawsuit to go to trial against the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical firm. That case was heard in a federal court in Columbus, Ga., where a jury awarded $6 million Nov. 21 to the son of a woman who died after using Oraflex. Lilly has said it will appeal the verdict. According to the Verzwyvelt suit, Lilly knew when it put Oraflex on the American market it had been linked with deaths and “serious liver and kidney problems in many other people in Great Britain in 1960

“No further proof of the futility and foolishness of a policy of concession bargaining need be offered than today’s announcement,” said union treasurer Frank McKee, who is running against - acting President Lynn Williams for the presidency left vacant by the death of longtime USW leader Lloyd Mcßride. Williams, at a news conference, called on the federal government to protect steel companies against foreign imports. “Today’s decision by U.S. Steel only adds to the urgency of what our union has been fighting for, and that is to take such decisions away from corporate boards and put them into the realm of national industrial policies,” he said.

dishes when the lights went off and there was a Mg noise.” “I looked over and the house across the street was in flames,” she said. Her own dining room “was full of wood and stuff and I had to walk through it.” Lizzie Preston, who lives with Ms. Hampton, was buried by the rubble. “I tried to pull the stuff off of her, but I just couldn’t pull it off,” Ms. Hampton said. “Then I went out and screamed, ‘Get her out! Get her out!”’

and 1981” but concealed that information from American physicians. Lilly has said data linking the deaths to Oraflex in Great Britain were “sketchy and inconclusive.” Company officials said more than 200 Oraflex cases, 29 involving fatalities, are pending in the United States. “The company firmly believes that it acted responsibly in its handling of Oraflex and will defend itself vigorusty in this and any lawsuit,” Lilly spokesman E. Ronald Culp said.