ustxtxb_obs_1982_06_18_50_00020-00000_000.pdf

OPEN 7:30 AM ’til 4 PM POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE The Houston Chronicle has fired a predictable opening salvo at the massive organizing drive just kicked off by a score of AFL-CIO unions in Harris County, featuring on its op-ed page an article by Clemson University professor Richard B. McKensie, heavily weighted against unions. McKensie’s conclusion: The South has “indeed risen again,” because its labor force is largely non-union. It said it is “myth” that wages are lower in Southern states, especially in such areas as Houston. A three-column, six-inch-deep, drawing accompanied the McKensie piece, showing the AFL-CIO seal superimposed over the Houston skyline. A South Texas federal district judge Filemon Vela has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to make public safety and health data on a federally-approved pesticide to a group of farmworkers who believe it poisoned them as they worked in a cornfield near Weslaco. Texas Rural Legal Aid attorney Robin Alexander sought the information for use in a state suit brought in behalf of the workers. It was the first such disclosure order ever issued. The Travis County DA’s office is investigating possible theft of state funds by at least one employee of the state House of Representatives, reportedly through a “ghost employee” on the House payroll. More than 2,000 union members and their families marched to protest the award of a construction contract to antilabor Brown and Root at an Amoco Oil Texas City refinery. Their placards carried such messages as “Give the Boot to Brown and Root,” and “Protect Texas City. Build Union.” Maverick Maury Maverick, Jr., as quoted in a Dallas Morning News interview: “. . . I defended more COs \(conlawyer in Texas . . . Those kids turned me around and made me an enemy of war.” Saying he favored a draft, however, Maverick added: “It makes the liberals mad, but I feel everyone needs a chance to serve their country. And in case of war, you draft the kids in Highland Park and send them out to die, and their folks will turn radical and shut that war down. For the kids in the ghetto, they’re just going from one war to another.” The Texas economy needs cheap Mexican nationals’ labor to fill jobs other Texans won’t take, said Gov. Bill Cle ments, in a slap at the recent roundup of illegal aliens by la migra. He added: “Maybe those unemployed people from Michigan are coming down here to dig post holes, but I don’t think so.” The National Anti-Klan Network has scheduled its third annual conference for June 18-20 in Atlanta, Ga. Georgia was chosen, a spokesman said, because of an “epidemic” of KKK activity in that state. Panels scheduled include an analysis of government response to Klan violence, “and the social and economic atmosphere in which KKK activity seems to flourish.” The Dallas Classroom Teachers Association is suing to block an administrative order that would, next fall, reclassify about 200 administrators and return them to classrooms as teachers. Operators of the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant have been warned by an independent consultant that their plant needs additional and more thorough checks for construction mistakes. The consultant said the plant’s quality checking staff was too small and without sufficient experience to insure safety. U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, was hissed as he spoke to a meeting of 300 members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in San Antonio. Simpson was defending a proposed immigration control act now before Congress. Simpson said uncontrolled immigration is responsible for creating “hostility by Americans who fear losing their jobs to immigrants.” A onetime Bexar County jail prisoner who, twelve years ago, spent 10 days in a cell without running water and a toilet that could be flushed from outside, has been awarded $400 on a federal court’s finding that his was a “cruel and unusual punishment.” His lawyer was told to bill Bexar County for $10,000 in fees. SER, a national Hispanic service organization headquartered at Dallas, held its 16th annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and heard U.S. Senator John Tower make a sales pitch for the Reagan defense budget. Said Tower, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: “In addition to providing national security, defense is a big employer of people and a big trainer of people. For every $2 million allocated to defense, 100,000 jobs are created in American industry, notwithstanding those jobs in defense maintenance and operations.” Monies spent on national defense, said Tower, “actually gives a 45% return because they also provide tax revenue.” Good books in every field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher ArRETHEsk o o Tu wATER EAT DOWNTOWN! BREAKFAST AND LUNCH Across from the Alamo National Bank 135 East Commerce, San Antonio 225-0231 20 JUNE 18, 1982