Waterloo Courier Cedar Falls (Newspaper) - July 2, 1986, Waterloo, Iowa WEDNESDAY JULY GOOD EVENING Berry treats provide the main Vaccination plan hits Thursday's Mostly sunny A2 Farm poll A new poll indicates most farmers want to vote on farm programs and favor tion cuts A6 25 CENTS 38 PAGES 5 SECTIONS WATERLOO IOWA c 1986 WATERLOO COURIER FALLS RECORD Private group may put up Meat Pack funds By ED ADCOCK Courier Staff Writer Attorney Louis Beecher is talking to a private financial group to provide million all the money needed for the Waterloo Meat Pack project He told the Black Hawk County Development Committee Tuesday that he is within an eyelash of gaining the entire amount needed to get the meatpacking operation off the ground Beecher made his comments at a special EDC board meeting at which he asked in behalf of the group for additional time to pay for the buying stations and wiener tunnel it wants to buy from the EDC The board voted to give until Dec 15 to pay for the property The firm will have to pay 10 percent interest for as long as it delays the purchase The board voted unanimously to approve the new arrangement Beecher who is helping arrange financing for Waterloo Meat Pack said the firm still wants both properties for its operation There were reports that the group had abandoned plans to process meat because of the lack of projected profits Unless the whole deal goes which could happen we want the wiener Beecher told a special meeting of the EDC board Beecher declined to specify who com- prises the private group with which he is negotiating He did say its had been in Waterloo to examine the firm's plans and financial ments He added that the new financing de- velopment has delayed the filing of corporation documents with federal and state authorities which would allow the public sale of stock in Waterloo Meat Pack A stock sale would require the EDC to wait six months for the payment for the stations and the wiener tunnel If the private group enters the ing arrangements then it would issue a letter of credit for the entire amount the firm needs and the EDC would likely get paid more quickly The cost of the wiener tunnel is Beecher estimated it will cost to remove the equipment from its location in the former Rath ingCo plant and install it in the proposed Waterloo Meat Pack building Despite the expense he said the agement group is interested in ing processed meats and bacon to its customers Originally the plant was planned to offer only fresh meat to continue incentives By ERIC WOOLSON Courier Staff Writer General Motors must con- to offer customer tive programs to Iowa until a new state law is defined Pottawattamie ty Senior Judge Paul Sulhoff ruled Tuesday AGM spokesman in Detroit Mich was not available for comment this morning Sulhoff issued an injunction at the request of the Iowa Automobile Dealers tion which protested GM of- decision to quit ing a percent financing rate to their 283 dealerships in the state The association also asked for a declaratory ment to define the law We have set in motion a clarification of the Jaw That is what GM said they said Gary Thomas of the IADA GM executives believe the law intended to stop rental companies from receiving dis- counts for buying fleets of cars is highly ambiguous and unconstitutional Proponents say the measure would prevent rental com- panies from dumping cars on the market and protect the investment of consumers who buy vehicles at retail Thomas called the auto- maker's interpretation of the law particularly im- Seeking court tion was the only option we saw I'm sure it's not going to make them real happy He expects other turer incentive programs to continue on schedule until a court decision is rendered Thomas believes the law is quite clear that it doesn't affect retail All we said in this lation is that the manufacturer must offer at the lowest price to one dealer as another The law eliminates what we see as a pricing he added Deere drops plan to buy Versatile Downed airship An experimental airship made from a blimp and parts of four helicopters lies in a field in Lakehurst after crashing shortly after takeoff Tuesday AP One of the five crew members aboard was killed Story on page A3 Supreme Court reaffirms legality of work place affirmative action INSIDE Daily Northeast SELLING A MOBILE HOME? Try placing an ad In Courier Freda Cobb of Waterloo did just that and sold her 1970 Mohawk by placing her ad with of our classified specialists Call or 1-800 toll-free from anywhere In Iowa WASHINGTON AP The Supreme Court handing civil rights forces a sweeping victory today re- affirmed the legality of affirmative action in the American work place to remedy past discrimination against blacks and other minorities The court's latest word on action came in two rulings In one the justices approved a plan in Cleveland that reserves about half the promotions in the city's fire de- for qualified minority In the other the court upheld a ruling that a union representing sheet metalworker New York and New Jersey must raise its non-white membership by August 1987 The rulings represent a major de- feat for the Reagan administration which sought to limit on-the-job racial preferences By a vote in the sheet metal workers case the court rejected the administration's position that only actual victims of discrimination may benefit from action remedies The justices said that more ing remedies do not violate federal civil rights laws or the guarantees Justice William J Brennan in the court's main opinion said We hold that federal law does not prohibit a court from ordering in appropriate circumstances affirmative conscious relief as a remedy for past discrimination Writing for the court's majority in the Cleveland case Brennan said agreements between employers and minority groups may provide racial preferences even more extensive than a federal court would have awarded after a trial He said such agreements do not amount to unlawful reverse dis- crimination against white males The court signaled today's de- on May 19 when ically it struck down by a vote an affirmative plan in Jackson Mich that protected black public school teachers from layoffs at the expense of whites with more seniority That ruling expressed strong port for the principle of affirmative action and was hailed as a victory by civil rights groups The administration has been in the forefront of the opponents of broad racial preferences with President Reagan advocating a colorblind society The administration has said quotas should be banned because they injure the innocent usually white males Civil rights groups supported by state and local official business leaders defended goals and quotas to remedy past discrimination In the Cleveland case a federal judge issued a consent decree in 1983 that calls for about half the tions in the fire department to go to See COURT Continued on page A2 col 5 By ED ADCOCK Courier Staff Writer Disappointed by federal ging Deere Co Tuesday dropped its agreement to buy the farm ment division of Versatile Corp Our efforts to gain U.S ment approval began over six months ago and we had expected to close the transaction last the company said in an announcement Now we are facing an additional delay and continuing uncertainty Deere entered into the acquisition process Dec The agreement with Versatile included a provision that either party could terminate it if the deal was not completed by June 30 The purchase would have moved all tractor tion to the Canadian company Deere makes three models of its at the Tractor Works Deere spokesman Bob Shoup said the result of abandoning the tion will be to maintain the status quo in employment for drive tractor production instead of losing those jobs The acquisition of Versatile was blocked by the Department of Justice after gaining approval by Canadian authorities The Justice Department feared the purchase would give Deere a monopoly in drive tractors In 1985 Versatile sold the most of the large tractors and had a 33 cent market share Deere was ond with 26 percent of all sales The Justice Department last month asked Versatile to look for another buyer before it would agree to the sell out Tractor analyst John Stark editor and publisher of Stark's Ledger said dropping the acquisition A Deere Co subsidiary has inked a million deal with the Corps A4 would be to Deere's advantage be- cause of the difference in the dollar exchange rates Deere was going to give Versatile million cash in Canadian dollars for its farm implement division Stark said That was a generous offer representing the book value of the Canadian operations He predicted Deere will reopen negotiations with Versatile later this summer at a reduced price There is little chance another farm ment manufacturer will try to buy farm implement division Deere left the door open for ing the acquisition if Justice ment approval within a reasonable period of time Stark added the government's foot-dragging may have stemmed from a series of investigations by the Federal Trade Commission ing from complaints by dealers and competitors The Justice Department was con- cerned by the purchase because Deere would have more than 55 cent of the market UP Jobs for Iowa Metro area game plan calls for diversification U.S Common Market agreement reached WASHINGTON AP The Re- agan administration today an- that it had reached a agreement with the European Community that will buy some running room for both sides to avert a trade war over agricultural products The agreement includes con- cessions by the Europeans that will permit continued U.S shipments of com and sorghum into Spain at rent levels while negotiations on ing trade barriers continue In exchange the United States agreed to withhold proposed re- steps against the European Corn prices drop sharply A4 Community for the remainder of the year A new deadline of Dec 31 was set for conclusion of the trade talks on agriculture Neither one of us wants to get into a trade war That's why these are taking said Com- merce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige Both sides now have running he added The recent expansion of the Euro- pean Community to include Spain and Portugal brought with it new limits on the levels of U.S grain imports into those countries The restrictions were to take effect im- mediately in Spain and at some un- specified time in the future in gal The Reagan administration had protested these limits by announcing new standby tariffs and quotas on a variety of European products including wine beer cheese and chocolates That provoked threats of counter moves by the European Community also called the Common Market See TRADE Continued on page A3 col 6 By ERIC WOOLSON Courier Staff Writer The bigger they are the harder they fall It's a tough lesson the metro area has learned since 1979 when workers made their livings at Deere Waterloo Operations Today the farm implement manufacturer's work force has slumped to dragging down the entire metro area economy Historically for Waterloo development was not a high priority because it took care of itself with the growth of John Chamber of Commerce president Jim Lawrence says Waterloo's industrial base never branched out because Deere was a vacuum that sucked up much of the work force What potential employers were running into was one of the highest average wages for industry in the Lawrence explains When they asked what was being Fourth in a series paid for skills in that area they'd say Gee that's nice and that's the last you heard of them Companies also worried the labor pool wasn't deep enough to guarantee that quality employees always would be available THE DILEMMA facing civic See JOBS Continued on page A2 col 3
