Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 19

REPUBLIC cm Arizona Republic March 8, 1986 'FU Steelworkers chief speaks tn Valley Protectionism against such imports as steel and copper "is a more active issue than ever, says Lynn Williams, president of the United Steelworkers union. E3. NYSE tables E4 Amex tables E5 OTC tables E6 Mutual funds E7 WW Unemployment jumps to 7.3; weather blamed Today hi t4M 2 fV (A A. tj National unemployment Shown in percent I AAV A 1 mo II or- On Strike nr 1WA fiifft MtendJrts IB Forced Jll flf 'fSS On Strike vfJL hv fori teatakUl TWA Guilty of 'Bad Faith TWAlcahn and Anti-Female-5 wislefiiTi DONT RISK YOUR VI 11 0 Bargaining' TRAVEt PLANS MrvtT tt.HTS -mm-m 1 L-M I NOT OPERATING 1 1 liflliff i II 1 I jy inner 8.0 7.5 1 1 Ml WW II 7.0 ill II jinn III -5 llllllllllll 6.0 MAM AS OND 85 '85 mmmmm 1 If I I 1 II 1111 I 5.. l.

1 1 In VA loan bill signed President Reagan on Friday signed a bill designed to prevent a threatened cutoff in home-mortgage loans guaranteed by the Veterans Administration. The measure raises the authorized level of VA-backed loans to $18.2 billion, up from $12 billion. But because of spending cuts required by the Gramra-Rudman deficit-reduction law, the amount will be reduced by 4.3 percent Debt 'unsustainable' A Third World bloc, known as the Group of 21, has warned it is caught in an "unsustainable" foreign-debt cycle of tighter loans, shrinking income and heavier payments due. The organization said urgent government action is needed by the industrial nations in cooperation with the Third World to turn around a worsening financial crisis, aggravated by the fall in prices of petroleum and other raw materials that constitute the main income 6ources of poorer nations. GE strike drags on Negotiations have reached another stalemate in a 2-week-old strike at three General Electric plants where 8,200 workers are protesting the company's handling of grievances.

The next bargaining is scheduled for 11 a.m. today. The strike has brought; production of engines for the Navy's F-18 jets and military helicopters to a virtual halt. Pan Am considered Eastern bid Pan American World Airways considered making a rival bid for Eastern Airlines shortly after Texas Air signed its agreement with Eastern last week but decided against it. A company spokesman said the New York investment firm of Lazard Freres which was hired by Eastern's Air Line Pilots Association to explore possibilities of an employee buyout of Eastern, asked Pan Am to consider a bid.

Pete Peters Republic Associated Press WASHINGTON The nation's civilian unemployment rate soared to 7.3 percent from 6.7 percent in February, the largest monthly gain in nearly six years, the Labor Department reported Friday. Bad weather in agricultural areas of California, a slumping oil industry in Texas and manufacturing layoffs in Illinois accounted for much of the 0.6 percentage point surge, department analysts said. The magnitude of the jump surprised government and private analysts alike. Beryl Sprinkle, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, called the increase "bad news" but said it should not be viewed "as a trend but merely as an aberration." At least 0.1 percentage point of the increase was due to an understating of the January level through an accounting error, said Janet Norwood, commissioner of the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. "It is clear the February data show some deterioration of the labor market, but we need data for additional months to determine what is really happening in the economy," she told the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

Arizona's January unemployment was 6.4 percent, compared with fi.Jl percent the previous month and 0.7 percent in January The raU' in Maricopa and Pima counties for January was 5.3 percent, also up from the previous month's rate of 5.1 percent, in Maricopa County and 5.2 percent in Pima County. A year ago, Maricopa County's rate was 4.5 percent and Pima County's was 5 percent, February jobless rates for the state and its counties will not be available for about two weeks, according to the state Department of Economic Security. Economists generally predicted Trans World Airlines employees picketing at Sky adise Valley, Alice Flynn of Scottsdale and hus-Harbor Airport are (from left) Deborah Buck of Par- band and wife Lauri and Rick Coopman of Phoenix. Strike makes TWA drop half its flights Republic the jobless rate soon will return to a level of at or near 7 percent "The February jump in unemployment is simply not believable," said Jerry Jasinowski, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers. "Employment has been exhibiting slow but steady gains.

I think we can expect unemployment declines to return in the months ahead." President Reagan said he agreed that the report did not reflect the true stale of the economy, claiming, "The great part of this is due to the weather that we had." The February increase returned unemployment to the level that prevailed for the first half of 1985 and abruptly reversed a gradual decline that began last August Civilian employment overall fell by 400,000 in February, erasing a gain of the same magnitude in January. Half of the January-Feb- Weather, E2 "TWA, I can tell you now for sure, is here to stay," Icahn said. "All of our employee groups are supporting us. Many of them were up all night, and they are working around the clock." U.S. District Judge Howard F.

Sachs in Kansas City denied TWA's request for a temporary order to keep 10,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers on the job. TWA spokesman Vic Scgale in Kansas City said only about 100 workers reported for the day shift at the maintenance base and more than 800 stayed away. In some cities, however, machinists continued working and the airline claimed that most were reporting. TWA, the ninth-busiest airline at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, canceled two of its six daily departures Friday, said John Murphy, head of TWA's operations in Phoenix. Striking flight attendants set up picket lines at Sky Harbor.

Murphy said all the International Association of Machinists members scheduled to work Friday did Strike, E2 Attendants refuse wage cutbacks; back to normal soon, airline vows Associated Press NEW YORK Trans World Airlines canceled half of its flights Friday as it squared off against union flight attendants, who walked out rather than accept pay cuts the airline says it needs to survive. TWA Chairman Carl Icahn claimed strong support from other employees, but several hundred machinists honored picket lines at the airline's major maintenance hase in Kansas City, Mo. TWA canceled half of the flights from its domestic-hub in St. Louis, all service from Newark Airport in New Jersey and flights to Copenhagen, Denmark; Barcelona, Spain; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Athens, Greece, on the first day of a strike by 5,700 members of the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants. Drawing on 1,500 newly hired flight attendants and as many ticket agents and other employees trained for cabin duties, the airline aimed to resume normal operat ions within four days, Icahn said.

Bates to buy agency Ted Bates Worldwide one of the world's largest advertising agencies, has agreed to acquire Kobs Brady, a leading direct-marketing agency. Terms were not disclosed. Closing shots fired in APS' $73 million rate-hike bid utility's coal-fired power plants and suggested that had they been run more efficiently, APS would not have needed to purchase any additional power. "It was a cursory, 'let's pretend, what if study," he said. "It was so tainted with mistakes that it can't be reasonably relied upon." Wheeler also took issue with arguments advanced by witnesses for the commission staff who suggested substantial reductions in what APS should be allowed to recover.

"That's retroactive rate-making and possibly illegal," he said. Additionally, he urged that the commission retain the fuel policy, saying that it was a fair way to handle such costs. Consumer-office lawyer Stephen A. Avilla defended the the fuel charge to APS customers to seven-tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour from the existing four-tenths of a cent. The commission policy that allows utilities to recover such expenses if they are determined by the panel to have been prudently spent also was contested at the hearing.

Opponents of the fuel-rate request maintain that most of the power purchases could have been avoided with better management and improved operation of APS power plants. APS lawyer Steven M. Wheeler maintained in his closing remarks that the arguments made against the utility's request during the proceedings were flawed, erroneous and possibly illegal. He took special aim at one presented by consumer-office engineer Ron Mathas, charging that a study that Mathas performed on the fuel-cost issues was "worthless." The study examined monthly operating capacity of the By FRANK TURCO Arizona Republic Staff The Arizona Public Service Co. fired its final volley Friday in a bid for a $73 million boost in its rates to pay for its increased fuel and power costs over the past several years.

And the state consumer office and the Corporation Commission's staff quickly expressed opposition to the utility's plan. The exchange took place as lawyers for the utility, the commission staff and the state Residential Utility Consumer Office delivered closing arguments in a three-week hearing on the APS proposal. The utility is seeking the extra revenues to pay for power it purchased from other utilities to meet its own needs and for increases in some wholesale fuels. The request would increase ALCOA sells subsidiaries Aluminum Company cf America has sold two wire-manufacturing subsidiaries to managers of the two firms for an undisclosed amount GM to idle Fiero plant General Motors Corp. will close its Pontiac Fiero plant in Pontiac, for one week beginning Monday to reduce inventories of the two-seater car.

The closing," which affects 2,200 workers, is the second shutdown this year. SaEtowftz store closes Sunday Motorola to re-employ 350, end semiconductor pay cut Dollar slips The dollar retreated when the Federal Reserve Board lowered its discount rate Friday but rebounded to finish slightly lower after the Fed made its presence felt in the The dollar dropped sharply right after the Fed's announcement of a discount rate cut to 7 percent from 7.5 percent, part of a coordinated move by large industrial countries. But it came back to finish slightly lower on the day. Gold closed in New York at $344.50 an ounce, up from $342.75. Silver closed at $5.62 an ounce, up 1 cent from Thursday.

By BARBARA ROSE Arizona Republic Staff Sakowitz, a high-fashion store whose sales clerks pampered their customers with handwritten thank-you notes, will close Sunday evening after 12 years in CamelView Plaza in Scottsdale. Negotiations are continuing with Federated Department Stores of Cincinnati to assume the store's lease, according to an attorney for Sakowitz Inc. in Houston. Federated offered $1.25 million for the long-term lease last month, according to court documents filed in connection with Sakowitz's reorganization under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code. Federated is the nation's fourth-largest retailer, with department-store chains such as Bullock's, Bloomingdale's, I.

Magnin, and Sanger Harris. Neither retailer would reveal which of Feder-ated's department stores is being considered for the mall. Federated already operates the largest store in CamelView Plaza: Bullock's, which anchors the mall with Sakowitz. In recent years, Federated has paired stores from its non-competing chains at a single location. It opened a Bloomingdale's store in 1983 at Valley View Mall in Dallas where its Sanger Harris chain had an outlet Sakowitz filed for Chapter 11 protection last summer, blaming its financial problems on the-energy recession and an influx of aggressive retailers.

Since then, the 83-year-old, family-owned chain has been pared from 17 outlets to four stores and two boutiques, all in the Houston area. The Scottsdale store, which opened in February 1973 as the chain's first outlet outside -Texas and its only store in Arizona, formerly employed about 120 people. A skeleton staff has manned the store in recent weeks during liquidation sales that were managed by a consultant, April-Marcus Inc. The 5 to 10 percent reductions, announced in October, were supposed to be effective through March 31. Because of automation, semiconductor employment won't grow as rapidly as it has in the past, Phillips said.

But Motorola is pleased with the industry's slight upturn, he said, and expects continued improvement "We're seeing a broad-based demand," he said, "which is good." Before the recall, Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector employed about 35,300 people worldwide, a reduction from 45,000 in 1984. The Phoenix -based Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola Inc. is recalling about 350 Valley employees laid off last year, a company official said Friday. The sector expects about 70 percent of the furloughed employees to accept Motorola's invitation to return to work, Ken Phillips said. The recall involves employees who took a voluntary leave as well as those laid off by the firm.

Motorola also has restored the pay cuts made during late 1985 in the semiconductor sector, Phillips said. Half of the cuts, for about 18,500 employees, were restored in mid-February. The rest were reinstated as of March 1. Market in brief NYSE Issues consolidated trading for Friday, Mar. 7 Volume: 190.283.790 Issues traded: 2084 State banks, are healthy, lawmakers told Up Highs 880 283 Unchanged 426 Down Lows 778 23 The figures, part of a report on staffing needs in the Banking Department, was prepared before Short took office.

She said Friday that the term "watch list" would be better than "problem list" and that companies often are placed on the list for routine reasons. "Being on the list doesn't necessarily mean an institution is in danger of closing," Short said. "All new institutions are on the list for at least a year and until we see they're on the right track." Other reasons include a change in management, fast growth, assets becoming too concentrated in certain areas, or poor liquidity, which might be caused by too many long-term investments. During the subcommittee hearing, a representative of the Executive Budget Office said the Banking Department should be authorized to hire 21 new etaminers in the Jfiscal year beginning July 1. Banks, E2 No 'imminent failures' are threatened, newly appointed superintendent says By IRA FINE Assistant Business Editor The newly appointed head of the state Banking' Department said Friday that there is no threat of failure by a bank or savings and loan association in Arizona at the present time.

"An imminent failure of any major financial institution is not a concern at this time," Banking Superintendent Mary Short told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. "There may be a couple that we're watching closely, along with federal regulators, and working with them" to correct any inadequacies in finances or management, Short said. In the? case of Security Savings and Loan Association, based in' Scottsdale, Short said her department is doing "everytbing possible" to assist the company in meeting state and federal standards, including increasing it net worth. Security's net worth has dropped to about 2.1 percent of its assets. Federal guidelines say anything below 3 percent is inadequate.

Federal regulators are working with Security officials on plans to build up the net worth. Short said one possible solution could be to have Security merge with or be acquired by another company. She said the department's confidentiality rules prevent her from revealing other information in the case or identifying any other financial institutions the department may be watching. Short spoke about Security only after its problems were outlined in a newspaper story. Short began work as superintendent Monday.

Her confirmation still must come before the state Senate. A report by the Banking Department released by a House committee earlier in thaweek said 50 percent of the state's savings and loans, ana 26 percent of the banks, are on a "problem list" NYSE index 130.38; 40.23 Comp. 225.57; 0.44 PJ Ind. 19.83; 3.23 Republic .1.