ustxtxb_obs_1983_04_22_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

Other Labor-Related Legislation Fair Employment, SB 573 of a fair employment division of the Texas Employment Commission to investigate and hold hearings on employment practices that discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin. Provides a procedure to investigate complaints of citizens about discriminatory practices. The division created would foster equal employment opportunity in Texas and undertake studies of particular problems of employment discrimination. Occupational Disease Benefits, HB medical care for workers who contract asbestosis or other occupational diseases. Currently, worker with asbestosis is usually denied workers’ compensation and coverage under group hospitalization \(because the House on March 30. Worker Death Benefits, HB 99 dependents of workers who die as a result of job injury to retain workers’ compensation payments received prior to death. Current law requires compensation repayment prior to collection of death benefits. Passed by House on March 30. Cancer Registry, HB 1564 \(Denrecording of data on all Texas residents who contract cancer. Data would include place of residence, type and place of occupation, and other relevant statistics. Designed to develop information helpful to the study or treatment of cancer. The Texas Medical Association and the state hospital association oppose the bill and tried to gut original cancer registry. “There must be too much good money in cancer,” said a supporter of the Denton bill. Child -Care Needs and Alternatives, tion of a joint commission to study child-care needs and alternatives in Texas through hearings and to submit a report to the 69th Legislature, which would include an evaluation of possible state assistance for alternative child-care. The percentage of Texas working women with children under six increased from 34.1 % in 1970 to 48.2% in 1980. 84% of these women work out of necessity, and 28 % are the sole support of their families. There are 300,000 children eligible for 15,000 federallysubsidized child-care slots in Texas. Families earning minimum wage pay up to one-third of their income for child care. 55,000 children are left home alone while parents work. Bill also proposes study of employer-sponsored child care. El Star Warriors Plot Texas Strategy By Dan Freedman San Antonio SAN ANTONIO, a city cultivating an image as a tourist and convention center, recently played host to a highly unusual conference. Floating river barges, mariachis, and other forms of local convention ballyhoo were conspicuously absent during the Air Force Electronic Security Command’s second annual seminar. This year’s topic was “The Air-Land Battle: How to Make it Work!” Only invited generals and high-tech defense industry civilians with top secret security clearances were able to witness the presentations inside ESC ‘s headquarters at Kelly Air Force Base. The guest list could have doubled as a “Who’s Who in Electronic Warfare.” Included were Lt. Gen. Lincoln D. Faurer, director of the National Security Agency, the highly secretive electronic intelligence sift-andsnoop outfit; and Dr. R. V. Jones, the British “wizard” who devised electronic methods of deflecting German V-2 rockets during World War II. Dan Freedman covers military affairs for the San Antonio Light. The conference was significant not only for what went on behind closed doors, but for what it symbolized. For openers, it signaled the continuing ascendancy of C3CM \(military acronym code for “Command, Control, and Communications Countermeasures,” a fancy way of saying electronic spying and inis making a target of itself as a societal dollar drain, electronic warfare is one of several sexy high-tech fields that make military public affairs officers’ mouths water. The logic is fairly straightforward. With satellites, Pentagon Trons, and PacMen at the helms of lasers in space, and electronic jammers resonating with video game noises, the world of Star Wars is no longer a fantasy. A public whose eyes are glazed by computerized defense hardware will not complain too loudly during the price-tag unveiling. The second interesting symbolic connection is the growth of Texas as an electronic spook haven. Washington D.C. and environs are the natural habitat of the intelligence “community.” ESC is perhaps the lone intelligence command outpost outside the capital area. ESC’s presence in Texas is easy enough to explain. The Pentagon has a standing policy of dispersing its key commands throughout the country. The Strategic Air Command is based in Omaha, Nebraska, for instance, while the North American Air Defense Command to spread out the number of choice targets for hostile missiles and bombers. HISTORICALLY a military town, San Antonio traces its connection with signal intelligence when the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service began operating a listening post at Fort Sam Houston. ESC started modestly in 1948 as the Air Force Security Service. By its name, one might have thought this was the unit in charge of MPs. By 1979, the Security Service had been elevated tct a full Air Force Command with a two-star general in charge. Home base is “the Hill” on the far side of Kelly AFB. Ardisana Hall, the Hshaped yellow headquarters building named after a high-ranking NSA functionary, houses ESC’s administrative offices as well as the Joint Electronic Warfare Center, the inter-service research and development division. A distinctive bowl-shaped communications dish, rings of cyclone fencing, and guards with THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13