Skip to main content
The largest online newspaper archive
A Publisher Extra® Newspaper

The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 14

Publication:
The Boston Globei
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts
Issue Date:
Page:
14
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

14 Boston Evening Globe Friday, Oct 8, 1976 1 A swap for tax reform, slate aid White would accept spending controls rity but most of them have not been the fault of Judge while some speakers called for a special session of that body, others said it would be a waste of time. Said John Buckley, state Secretary of Administration and Finance: "I cannot see any atmosphere in Massachusetts to create a new tax. It would be an exercise in futility." Asked later if he would" recommend that Dukakis call a special session Nov. 3, as suggested by Harold chairman of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, Buckley said: "No, not as of today." SEMINAR, Page 16 Garrity." Although much discussion centered on the Boston School Committee, the only invited member of that body chairman John J. McDo-nough did not appear, prompting comments on his absence by Dukakis and others.

McDonough could not be reached at his office or home last night. Any change in the School Committee structure or any attempt to add new tax revenue must be approved by the State Legislature and m-inri rnt.ii iimn ntm ri litiinrm-n i i mnia fin ill mniiw nrnnriiito i -iVS' ti-i By David Rogers and Gary McMillan Globe Staff Mayor Kevin H. White, rejecting the property tax as a source of additional 'revenue for Boston, said yesterday he would consider accepting controls on city spending in return for tax reforms that would bring the city new sources of income or increased state aid. While White continued to bridle at suggestions of an outside euthority, like New York's Big MAC, overseeing city spending, he said he was open to writing expenditure limitations into tax legislation. The mayor said these limitations could be achieved through voter re-ferendums on bond issues or by an index or formula ap- proach to limiting annual increases in come municipal services.

"That is a big item I am willing to stick to," said White. "I understant there has to be some limitations so residents see some real relief in the property tax and not continued spending. You can't do it in all areas, but it is a significant concession I am ready to make as a condition for tax reform." White first raised the possibility of limits on city spending during a seminar on Boston's financial problems, and then elaborated on his remarks in a. subsequent interview. The seminar, which was held at the Parker House and sponsored by The Globe, brought together government, civic and business leaders to discuss possible solutions to the city's fiscal crisis.

Although several participants in the seminar argued for a special session of the Legislature to consider Boston's problems, no action is likely before next year. Gov. Michael Dukakis, who spoke with White, focused most of his attention on ways to cut costs, particularly in the schools. "I am not the mayor of the city and I cannot speak for him," said Dukakis. "But from my vantage point I find it very difficult to understand how the chief executive of a city can be held accountable for the city's expenditures when a large section of that budget is beyond his control.

"Suppose we at the state" level had to balance our budget a year ago, but were told we could not touch wel While Gov. Dukakis listens, Thomas 0. Paine, president and chief operations officer of Northrop speaks at dedication of new Norwood plant which will house the firm's Precision Products Department. (Globe Photo by Charles Dixon) 400 new jobs possible Northrop opens $5m EPA working to end its red tape in state Norwood is meeting the environmental standards themselves," McGlennon said at a conference on solid-waste disposal technology sponsored by the New England Council He said the Refuse Energy Systems Co. (Resco) incinerator in Saugus, for example, required 31 permits before construction could begin four from Federal agencies, 20 from state offices and seven from the town of Saugus.

Murphy said she will disclose next week details of a plan to reorganize her office's regulatory branch to consolidate permit-issuing activities at regional offices, rather than in Boston. FEAMINGHAM Two top environmental officials yesterday told a group of Massachusetts businessmen that they agree with critics who say their agencies' regulatory methods are a morass of red tape. John A. S. McGlennon, regional administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Evelyn F.

Murphy, Massachusetts secretary of environmental affairs, said their offices are working to make applying for environmental permits easier. "It's quite possible that the problems and delays" faced by applicants "are a more critical problem than American firms eager for trade with Vietnam pi ant in By Daniel J. Corcoran Globe Staff A new $5 million engineering and administration headquarters building was opened in Norwood by Northrop Corp. yesterday. It will house its Precision Products Department operations.

The plant expansion will not result in any new jobs now, but it should lead to the addition of 400 production workers during the next year or two, according to Joseph Yamron, vice president and manager of the department. Northrop has some 900 employes and a payroll of about $12 million in Norwood. The company's facilities there produce a wide range of high-technology gyrosocpes and inertial guidance and control instruments for use in more than ing officer of Northrop, said the Norwood expansion was concrete evidence of the company's confidence in the determination of Massachusetts to improve its business climate. Paine joined Northrop last February. The Los Angeles company manufactures aircraft and electronics and communications systems.

A former administrator of NASA, Paine spent most of his industrial career with General Electric, at one time as manager of its Meter and Instrument Laboratory in Lynn. Gov. Michael S. Dukakis attended the opening and hailed it as further evidence of the turnaround in the state's economic condition. He noted that more than 100,000 jobs have been created in the past 18 months.

couldn't have done it" Returning to the same theme later in the session, the governor compared Boston's current school appropriations with a per pupil cost of $2100 per year, which he said was the rough average for his home town, Brookline. "If my math is right, that translates into $130 million if applied to Boston," said Dukakis, "Which is a big $40 million less than the $170 million the Boston School Committee is trying to reach or more than you could get each year from a payroll tax." (Actually, it appears that the governor's arithmetic was incorrect. A per pupil cost of $2100 for Boston's 70,000 students a conservative estimate of the city's enrollment would translate into $147 million.) Even City Council President Louise Day Hicks, a former member of the School Committee and a leading antibusing spokes person agreed that school costs are "exorbitant, and way out of line," adding, in a surprising departure from some of her past statements: "They have blamed them (rising costs) on Judge Gar- Southeast Asia," plus "port facilities, sophisticated telecommunications and an airfield in almost every town." Factories seized included three large textile mills, pharmaceutical plants, two large paper and cellulose mills, several refrigeration plants, and one large cement plant. The Americans also left consumer goods ranging from IBM computers to televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners. The industrial and infrastructure assets together are worth $12 billion, Saubolle said.

Partially as a result, he said, "Vietnam could emerge as a serious competitor in the Asian export market." Vietnam's potential exports include oil, coal, timber, minerals, textiles, arts and crafts, and agricultural products such as rice. American exporters could provide it with mining and oil production equipment, fertilizer and spare parts for the machinery Americans left behind there. In contrast to China's policy of "self-reliance," Vietnamese officials welcome foreign invetment. A Japanses oil firm and the French state-owned petroleum corporation ELF are negotiating with the Vietnamese government for concessions to develop the nation's offshore oil fields. rmmmmmmm lUIBIIBIlii Congratulations to MARVIN KABACHNICK, C.LU.

Leader In Sales for the Month of September In the JULES MEYERS ASSOCIATES Mutual Benefit Life Agency mmmmmemmama fare. We simply STORE HOURS: 9:30 to 5:30 8 Monday thru Saturday Yy Equal opportunity open new advisory 200 defense and space programs. Yamron said the transfer of the 250 engineers and administration staff to the new building will open up space in the two older plants for additional production and employes, raising the payroll to better than $15 million. The new building was designed to permit construction of an addition which would more than double that unit he said. "I would expect to be asking Northrop to start work on that addition about five years from now," Yamron said.

"And when it's completed, the total expansion program will increase our facilities here by 70 percent." i Dr. Thomas O. Paine, president and chief operat help corporations solve their discrimination problems. Indeed, consulting services in this field are becoming big business. Several of the large, established management consulting firms have added separate divisions to handle the business.

And hordes of individuals have been setting themselves up recently as experts. There's no question that equal employment regulation is having a profound impact on the personnel policies of almost all companies. Job applicants and employes alike are protected by the laws. A company whose personnel system has discriminated in the past, even if it doesn't now, must prepare and implement a detailed and specific affirmative action plan. And it must restore to individuals their previously denied rights.

Failure to do so will lead to charges against the company, suits, and unfavorable publicity, Karp warns. In one recent year the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed 122,000 actionable charges (69 percent against private employers) involving race, sex, and other forms of employment discrimination, he notes. The 7000 complaints it settled out of court last year cost employers $111 million in back pay, he adds. "When we first approach company managers, they often have the attitude we're attacking them," Karp says. "We're not an adversary group; we're a professional research team.

"Whenever we go into a company, the people will i By Jacques Leslie Los Angeles Times HONG KONG American companies here, impatient to do business with Communist Vietnam, fear they are losing the market to Japanese and European entrepreneurs while Washington and Hanoi continue their antagonism. "I would assume we are going to find a very cold climate for some time to come," said Stanley Young, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, after President Ford ordered a veto of Vietnam's membership application to the United Nations. The American chamber already had formed a Vietnam Commercial Relations Committee, and was surprised that 45 representatives of firms here attended the committee's first meeting. But, Young said, the committee is "stymied" because of the trade embargo' that the United States imposed on Vietnam following the Communist victory over the Saigon government last year. The April, 1975, fall of Saigon did not halt private US trade efforts, however.

Last November the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce, which represents American chambers in 16 nations and territories, passed a resolution calling for the establishment of commercial relations with Vietnam. In addition, the Bank of America branch here recently began publishing an Indochina newsletter similar to one it has put out on China for several years. Despite the barrier to American business in Vietnam, the circulation of the Indochina newsletter has increased twice as fast as the China newsletter did initially, a bank official said. STONE BERG LUMBER CO. LtJjCl'fllfc AT As it now stands, however, not only is US trade with Vietnam illegal, but Americans face formidable obstacles in visiting Vietnam.

They must get a waiver from the US State Department if their passport is to be used during the trip, and they face prosecution by the US Treasury Department for "trading with the enemy" if they spend money there. Little hope for immediate modification of the US stance was seen here, especially in view of Ford's instructions to UN Ambassador William W. Scranton to veto Vietnam's application to the world body, and the later postponement of the membership vote until November. American businessmen's enthusiasm for Vietnam is based on several factors. Chief among them is the common belief that while Vietnam's government is Communist, it is far more flexible and alert to the needs of Western firms than is China, whose US trade has grown only slowly since it began in 1971.

"Vietnam will go much faster than China in opening to Western trade," predicted a businessman who is familiar with Communist economies. "Vietnam won't be under the same restraints that China was in its first 15 or 20 years under Communist rule." Businessmen also are attracted to Vietnam because of the prodigious assets left behind by the US forces in South Vietnam. These include what Louis E. Sau-bolle, Asia representative of the Bank of America, calls "probably the best roads in PETER FULLER Leasing NO ONE CAN LEASE YOU a 1977 CADILLAC FASTER THAN WE CAN mi rum a tot COMMONWEALTH AVE BOSTON AT U. BRIDGE 232-5800 laws field fight and resist us.

They will insist they do not discriminate. We must break through their personnel patterns. They form a system that not only operates but generates adverse treatment of women and minorities." Overt discrimination deals with set policies and practices. It's difficult enough to change Karp says, because most people in a company have adapted to the system, defend the status quo, and are afraid of change. But covert discrimination," which is deeply entrenched within the individual and invisible, is even tougher, he says.

"We call it systematic discrimination; it's ingrained in the system. When you try to change people problems, you find all kinds of resistance." Banks, for reasons Karp says he can't explain, are particularly testy about changing their ways. A president of a major bank admitted privately to him that he'd never hire a teller with a Polish or Russian name, Karp says. The policy wasn't written, but it was firm. "Our customers are Protestants," was the banker's explanation.

in Autumn leaf bur exclusively Scottish-woven "346" TWEED SPORT JACKETS Our Scottish weavers were asked to duplicate the colorings of selected New England leaves at their Autumn peak for these superb new wool tweed jackets. We think you will be proud to wear the results. Checks, basket weaves, herringbones, stripings and plaids are included in a most distinctive selection. $135 By Jack Houston Chicago Tribune William Karp makes a living telling businessmen things they don't want to hear on a subject they don't like to discuss. And they pay him handsomely for it.

What he tells them is all about equal employment opportunity laws. His message, like sermons on original sin, isn't always well-received. Businessmen just don't like being told their companies, without even trying, usually discriminate one way or another against current and prospective employes. But more and more companies, sometimes under threat, are deciding they need outside help to cope with the growing maze of laws, executive orders, and government regulations dealing with equal employment and affirmative action programs. There now are more than 25 such edicts, and the next Congress may pass more.

Enter William Karp, consultant. In five days, he boasts, he can tell you everything you should know about complying with the laws. You may not like what you learn, but putting it off won't work, he advises. While the government has often been slow in finding violators, its scrutiny keeps intensifying with the rising awareness among workers of their rights. Karp and his Chicago firm, William Karp Consulting are among the best-known of the nation's growing breed of specialists who Use your Brooks Brothers charge account or American Express.

IIMIUiHIDMll Sms 1 oi)6' Furnishings, flats 46 NEWBURY STREET, COR. BERKELEY BOSTON, MASS. 02116 Buyltac CAHLSOITLDMli P- rLHOnUHIMU fj.

Get access to Newspapers.com

  • The largest online newspaper archive
  • 300+ newspapers from the 1700's - 2000's
  • Millions of additional pages added every month

Publisher Extra® Newspapers

  • Exclusive licensed content from premium publishers like the The Boston Globe
  • Archives through last month
  • Continually updated

About The Boston Globe Archive

Pages Available:
4,494,076
Years Available:
1872-2024