The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 25

Perspective. C9 Stock listings C3, money market rates C5 Sunday News Journal Oct. 27, 1985 -C1 Eaumkms oe Delaware's work force fFft4ir cz2 top of the scale in New Castle County banks, according to a study by the Delaware Development Office. On average, computer operators start around $3.35 an hour and the top operators, with skill and experience, can earn up to $15.80 an hour. In most cases, wages in Kent and Sussex counties, where demand has not been as great, are slightly lower.

Arnold wouldn't reveal MBank's salary scales, but he said the bank chose to pay near the high end of prevailing wage scales for experienced people. "Our pay scales were in line with our peers'," Arnold said. "They ended up being slightly less than for the same jobs in Dallas. "In many cases, it was a promotion rather than a raise," that attracted an experienced employee, Arnold said. About 86 percent of MBank's new employees were Delaware residents; 10 percent came from Pennsylvania.

Forty-three percent came from 57 banking and financial institutions, Arnold said. Seventy percent had been in their jobs for less than two years and 50 percent had less than a year of banking experience, he said. "Each new kid on the block is coming into a scarce employment market for experienced workers more aggressive than the last, and MBank is a good example of somebody coming in aggressively," said Thomas K. Kerstetter, an executive vice president of Wilmington Savings Fund Society." After MBank's arrival, suddenly Stall photo by Chuck McGowen Rows of workers man their desks at Chase Manhattan Bank's credit-card processing center, 600 Market St. Act's impact on other industries.

Established companies such as Du Pont Co. and Hercules Inc. may also be feeling a pinch for clerical help, she said, explaining that the greatest demand is for entry-level people with clerical skills. there was talk that the labor force in Delaware might not be able to support all of the rapidly growing financial businesses that planned to set up shop in the state. More than 20 banks and other financial companies joined hands to hire a consulting firm to study the area's labor supply and prevailing wage rates.

State officials are adamant that there is no labor shortage. Louis H. Papineau director of the Delaware Development Office, told members of the Delaware state Chamber of Commerce last week that if a bank came in tomorrow needing 400 employees, he could find them. The chamber and the development office are conducting a survey of the labor market. Banks are beginning to see a slowdown in qualified applicants at all levels, says Jan Ewing Robinson, assistant director of the Delaware Development Office, who is conducting the survey.

But Robinson, who is responsible for education, training, and recruitment, doesn't believe there is a crisis. Robinson also is looking at the Financial Center Development By MARCIA MING Staff reporter Delaware banks, which used to worry only about competing for business, now have to worry about holding onto their employees. The reason is the state's smashing success in attracting banks and other financial institutions. It started in 1981 with the Financial Center Development Act, which eliminated Delaware's interest-rate ceilings and improved tax rates for large banks. The object of the legislation was to create jobs, and it's done that.

The act has lured 16 large out-of-state banks to Delaware, creating more than 4,100 jobs in banking alone. Other new banking laws and federal deregulation of the industry have attracted a half-dozen more banks and two credit-card processing companies. "Our turnover range for many years was 15 percent to 17 percent a year," says Robert L. Yori, vice president of human resources at Delaware Trust Co. "In the past year that turnover has increased by 3 percent to 4 percent." Yori doesn't believe Delaware ianks are facing a labor crisis.

But he says, "It's an employee's market right now." Most banks surveyed for this article said they have been affected in some way by the competition for employees. "We have lost people at various levels," said Lawrence T. Alford, senior vice president at Bank of Delaware, "but not what we thought could happen." Some employees have played a game of musical chairs, moving from one bank to another for a greater opportunity or a pay raise. Until early this year, the banks were prepared to grin and bear it because of the Financial Center Development Act's many benefits. But that changed when MCorp, a Dallas-based bank holding company, began setting up MBank USA.

While other banks started slowly, MBank hit the ground running. It used large newspaper ads to help find employees. And the ads drew nearly 4,000 applicants for 245 jobs. Some of those applicants were experienced collectors, credit analysts and customer relations representatives who had been trained at other banks. MBank not only advertised aggressively, its wage scales are slightly higher than most of the banks in the region, and it offers free parking a rarity in downtown Wilmington.

"We were willing to pay premium prices to attract the quality of employees to deliver quality service," said H. Christopher Arnold, MBank USA's president. The average salary for a bill collector starts at about $5.29 an hour and rises to $12.66 an hour at the See BANKING C6 BancMania (Delaware) Financial Center Development Act banks employed 1,125 people at the end of 1982. Today they employ more than Two who landed on top 4,000. Here they are, with the years they opened.

Kinzel, 40, came to Delaware with Citibank (Delaware) in 1982, but moved to Marine Midland Bank (Delaware) when that bank opened in 1984, because of the opportunity to walk into the No. 2 two spot, and be promoted to chief administrative officer. There's a lot of opportunity in a com- Bank employees 1981 Morgan Bank (Delaware) 430 1982 Chase Manhattan Bank (USA)- 767 PNC National Bank 142 Maryland Bank N.A. 560 First Omni Bank 550 Equitable Bank of Delaware 1 46 Chemical Bank (Delaware) 1 05 Citibank 317 CoreStates Bank of Delaware 250 Suburban BankDelaware 100 1 983 Manufacturers Hanover Bank (Delaware) 1 28 Bank of New York (Delaware) 190 1984 Marine Midland Bank (Delaware) 270 1985 MBank USA 275 Barclays Bank of Delaware 55 Bankers Trust 15 In 1980, Joseph N. Scarpinato was assigned the job of finding the best place for Chase Manhattan Corp.

to move its credit-card operations. When the job was done, Chase Manhattan Bank (USA) and Scarpinato had both moved to Delaware, but not together. Scarpinato, a vice president at Chase, became president, chief executive officer, and later chairman of Ben-eficial National Bank USA, the credit-card subsidiary of Beneficial Corp. Recruited by a headhunter, Scarpinato, 40, says he left the third-largest banking company in the nation for the opportunity to be a chief executive officer with Beneficial. "When I was offered this position, I sensed a real commitment on the part of Beneficial to grow in this business and become a major player," he said.

The Beneficial offer was "too attractive to turn down," Scarpinato says. Otto Kinzel III left his job as a vice president with Citicorp, the largest bank holding company in the world, for similar reasons. dents at Citibank, Kinzel said. And even at Citibank (Delaware), Kinzel said he was one of five or six vice presidents, with others lined up in front of him. "Marine Midland gave me the tunity to find out if I could manage the day-to-day operations," he said.

Now he works more with middle-market companies instead of routinely cutting deals with the Fortune 500. Marine Midland, with headquarters in Buffalo and New York City, is the 14th largest banking company in the country. While Citibank (Delaware) was mainly an operations center with very little opportunity to relate to De-lawareans, Donald E. Cielewich, president of Marine Midland (Delaware), has encouraged Kinzel to get involved. "I'm part of the community," Kinzel said.

"In my level, I'm lucky," he said. "I get to talk with everyone in every business group. I get to see a whole broad base of what goes on in the bank." By Marcia Ming At Citibank there were 500 vice presidents; a smaller bank provided more opportunity. pany as large as Citibank, Kinzel says. He said he had a number of positive experiences in his 18 years with the bank, including a stint in Saudi Arabia.

But it's also "a very aggressive organization where you compete with each other," he said. "A lot of my peers were the same age." There probably are 500 vice presi Source: Banks listed OTlg JOBS Gluck has Caesars glittering again in the gaming world 1 1 As Chrysler vote looms, security tops agenda for UA By ROBERT MACY Associated Press LAS VEGAS, Nev. Saddled 'with $63 million in shaky receivables, a 3-to-l debt-to-equity ratio and an anemic balance sheet, the Caesars World gaming empire was on rocky financial ground when Henry Gluck took the reins 2Vi years ago. But Gluck, who had retired at 45 "to smell the roses" then returned to take on the Caesars challenge, talks today of new directions for a company that has been synonymous with gaming's glitter for 20 years. "The Palace has just completed the most profitable year it has ever had," Gluck said in a interview at his flagship Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.

"This is the first year in Caesars' history that all the properties have been profitable at one time." Caesars World Inc. reported net income of $31.8 million for the 1985 fiscal year, which ended July 31, compared with $18.8 million for fiscal 1984. The company sustained a loss of $21 million in fiscal 1983 due mainly to $63 million in doubtful debt primarily casino credit that could not be collected. Revenues for fiscal 1985 totaled $660.8 million up $40 million from the previous year for the Los Angeles-based company's seven Caesars resorts in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Atlantic N.J., and the Poconn Mountains of Pennsylvania. Gluck, 57, was coaxed cut a the Caesars board by business associates three years ago during a very troubling time in the company's history.

"The company had a very poor tent issue in labor talks in the mid-1980s. The UAW got Chrysler to agree to finance a retraining fund similar to the $1 billion fund General Motors Corp. created last year for workers with a year or more seniority. But the union failed to get the limits on use of foreign parts that it was seeking. Labor analysts say UAW President Owen Bieber has been making a major push for job protections to prevent his members from meeting the fate of the steelworkers, whose numbers were cut by half, from 340,000 to 171,000, in the last decade.

Leaders of the United Steel-workers union keep a running tally of steel plants abandoned as modern-day dinosaurs. The union has seen thousands of its members, who were within a few years of retirement, suddenly placed on the unemployment rolls. As Bieber has said, today's newly hired autoworkers live with uncertain futures. No longer do they have the security that carried with it the unwritten promise of the middle-class comforts that older autoworkers gained in the last three decades. Critics say it was the workers' wage demands that helped drive UAW membership from 1.5 million seven years ago to 1.1 million today.

The UAW's current tentative contract with Chrysler includes an- By CHRISTOPHER PUMMER Staff reporter Bob Bruce, an assembler at Chrysler Newark plant, learned the importance of job security well before the autoworkers' union made it an issue in recent contract talks. For 15 years, Bruce worked in a non-union chemical plant in Delaware City. His last employer fired him, he said, in a shakeup that sent senior employees to the unemployment line in favor of younger, lower-paid replacements. Chrysler hired Bruce in May 1984. Today, Bruce, 35, of Odessa, is a of the United Auto Workers union, but he's got no more seniority than some 19-year-old autoworkers.

He could be among the first out the door if there are layoffs because of competition or automation. "I've already got my house paid up, so I wouldn't be hurt as much as the young guys," Bruce said. "But yes, I'm worried. There should be some protection for the guy just hired." Three union locals at the Newark plant vote today on a tentative contract that the United Auto Workers reached with Chrysler on Wednesday after a weeklong strike. When the 4,300 union members meet in the University of Delaware's Clayton Hall, discussion is certain to turn to the contract's provisions on job security, a persis Henry Gluck balance sheet, it had approximately a 3-to-l debt-to-eqnity ratio, it had a lot of receivables that we knew were going to be a problem and it had very substantive problems with New Jersey regulatory authorities," Gluck recalled.

"When I got in I found out it was worse than I expected." Gluck had retired in 1973 to spend more time with his family after traveling 2 million miles putting together Monogram Industries, a $300 million conglomerate. He said he faced some difficult choices in early 1983 after spending several months on the Caesars board. See CAESARS C7 University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "If you look at steel, wage conc-sessions were not going to save the steel industry," Rico said. "They're a short-run means to preserve jobs, but other economic factors are equally important.

It's not a long-See UAW C7 nual wage increases of 2 percent and 3 percent along with cost-of-living adjustments. At the current rate of inflation, the autoworkers could gain in real wages three years from now. But cutting back wages wouldn't be a panacea for the industry, said Leonard Rico, a management and industrial relations professor at the.