Waterloo Courier Cedar Falls (Newspaper) - January 21, 1987, Waterloo, Iowa WEDNESDAY JANUARY GOOD EVENING Wage agreement MET bus drivers hired by the proposed new transit system will get to keep their same wage rate C1 Comic book sales booming A7 Utilities reject transfer plan C1 Thursday's Much colder and windy A2 Shooting derby Tom Schafer and Jeff Grayer share scoring honors in win over Nebraska B1 35 CENTS 28 PAGES 4 SECTIONS WATERLOO IOWA 1987 WATERLOO COURIER FALLS RECORD Deere union studying order for talks Stroll in the park Adolf Braun and his Ginger enjoy a solitary stroll across a Liberty Park earlier this week as temperatures in Waterloo climbed Courier photo by DAN into the high 20s Just the opposite weather will be arriving in the metro area tonight Sub-zero temperatures are predicted for the next couple days ROCK ISLAND 111 AP Deere Co and striking United Auto Workers union officials are studying a circuit order to resume contract negotiations a month after the two sides last met across a bargaining table Spokesmen for the union and the company were cautious in assessing the possible impact of the decision Tuesday by Rock Island County Judge David DeDonker DeDonker issued his order while hearing a contempt case involving UAW Local 79 officials and the ruling appeared to catch the company and the union by surprise The judge ordered the two sides to set new contract talks and to report the site and time of those negotiations to him at a court hearing Friday We're waiting to be served with the said company spokesman Brian Aim from Deere's Moline headquarters We need to see what's in it consult with our lawyers and decide how to proceed All we can say right now is we have not yet received a copy of the Carl tyla spokesman for the international union said in a telephone interview from UAW headquarters in Detroit UAW workers went on strike Aug 23 at three Deere facilities The labor dispute has since ened to involve strikes at five Deere facilities and lockouts at eight others About workers in Iowa and Illinois have been idled by the labor dispute although UAW members continue to work at five Deere parts depots Page says there's no Detroit Deere accord United Auto Workers Local 838 President Don Page Wednesday said there is no formal agreement between the UAW and Detroit Deere Corp There has been no agreement reached on the pact contrary to the story in the Tuesday edition of the Courier There has been no agreement on the seniority provision of the pact Tuesday's story indicated that an ment in principle bad been reached between the two parties The hearing Tuesday was to determine whether UAW Local 79 officials should be held in contempt for allegedly violating an earlier court order ing picketing at a company warehouse in Milan The contempt hearing was prompted by an incident in which the cars of about a dozen salaried workers at Deere's Milan facility were found to have flat tires after a Jan 12 union DeDonker heard testimony from officials Deere and the local relating to the contempt then said his ruling could be influenced by whether any progress had been made toward Telephone calls to UAW Local 79 in Milan local president Bob Edwards at his home went unanswered Tuesday Second German reported kidnapped Waite stays for talks BEIRUT Lebanon AP An anonymous caller said today a West German was kidnapped overnight the second German in Beirut since the arrest in Frankfurt of a Lebanese on charges of hijacking a TWA jetliner in 1985 Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite met with pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem extremists in what was an all-night negotiating session aimed at freeing U.S hostages Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland who were napped in 1985 Jihad a spokesman for the Druse militia that has escorted Waite in Beirut told Mr Waite is having a meeting with the We're waiting for a bite weakest since 61 WASHINGTON AP Americans last year saw their gest respite from inflation in 25 years the government reported day as consumer prices rose only 1.1 percent The annual increase in the Labor Department's consumer price index the lowest since the 6.7 percent inflation of 1961 was skewed by a 60 percent plunge in crude oil prices that followed last winter's collapse of the OPEC cartel As a result retail prices for last month were 30.7 percent their level of December 1985 Home heating oil prices were down 29.9 percent while natural gas and electric utility costs fell 3.3 percent over the year Except for energy consumers found little relief from inflation Prices rose 5.8 percent for new auto- mobiles 3.7 percent for food 1.8 percent for housing 0.9 percent for clothing and 3.4 percent for the Labor Department said Used car prices fell 5.1 percent The sum total of the price changes in the Labor Department's market basket survey of 184 goods and services left the overall CPI at the end of 1986 at 331.1 That means that consumers paid 133.11 or 37 cents more than they had paid in December 1985 for products that had cost them only in 1967 For this year the White House is forecasting that consumer prices will rise at an annual rate of 3.8 percent the same rate as in 1983 and 1985 Most private economists pre- dict inflation will be closer to the 4 percent rate of 1984 Indeed the December figures in- that inflation is creeping Authorities indicate West Germany may delay a decision on the U.S extradition request for Mohammed Ali A2 phone call from him to go and pick him up The anonymous caller to a Western news agency office in west Beirut said We kidnapped yesterday night German national Alfred Schmidt in the vicinity of the Summerland tel The caller who spoke Arabic hung up without saying what group he represented The claim if genuine would bring to 19 the number of foreigners ing and believed kidnapped in non Schmidt 46 is an engineer with the Siemens company and was in charge of installing equipment for the new story Middle East Hospital about half a mile from the hotel The hospital manager Dr Adel said Schmidt was kidnapped from his hotel but did not elaborate A Summerland hotel spokesman however said Schmidt left the hotel Tuesday morning and has not re- turned The spokesman said Schmidt checked into the seaside hotel in the Jnah district on day Another employee denied Schmidt was kidnapped from his room I saw him Tuesday morning He told me bye and left the said the employee who also spoke on condition of anonymity West German businessman Rudolf Cordes was kidnapped Saturday shortly after arriving at Beirut port No group has claimed for his abduction but West German security sources said he was being held by Hezbollah a Shiite group loyal to Iran The West German government said Tuesday that Cordes ping was linked to the arrest in Frankfurt on Jan 13 of Mohammed Ali a Lebanese wanted in the United States on charges of jacking a TWA jetliner During the 1985 hijacking a U.S Navy diver was shot to death Thirty-nine passengers were held hostage in Beirut for 17 days before being released Waite on his fifth visit to Beirut in an effort to free foreign hostages was seen leaving his hotel in Moslem west Beirut at p.m Tuesday escorted by three Druse bodyguards The escorts returned half an hour later but Waite had not returned to the hotel by today told reporters this after- noon that Waite was meeting with the kidnappers and said Like all previous Waite outings he will call and we will send the escort to pick him up and bring back to the hotel Waite had planned to leave day for London but cancelled his flight to remain for face-to-face negotiations with Islamic Jihad the Shiite group holding Anderson and Sutherland Sources close to the Anglican envoy said he held meetings with Islamic Jihad late Monday It looked like he has had a one source said Tuesday Waite has not spoken to reporters since Monday when he said the nappers had assured him the two Americans were well looked after and in good condition Waite said Monday that ally the prospects are good for the release of Anderson 39 The Press chief Middle East correspondent and Sutherland 55 acting dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut Both men were abducted in 1985 Consumer Price Index Seasonally adjusted measure of inflation by percentage of monthly change in consumer prices U.S Labor I J F J A SONO 86 1 UP Farm equipment outlook Firms hope industry is turning the corner back up to the range of 3.5 percent to 4 percent Overall consumer prices rose at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.2 percent from November equivalent to an annual inflation rate of 2.9 percent Energy prices which had held steady in November despite in- creases at the wholesale level began rising Gasoline costs edged up 0.7 percent home heating oil prices rose 0.7 percent Food prices rose 0.2 percent last month atop a 0.5 percent increase the previous month with gains tered across a wide range of products Grocery store prices held flat Sea INFLATION Continued on page A2 col 6 By ANN TONER The Kansas City Star KANSAS CITY Mo The farm equipment business continued its seven-year slide last year but while production is in the cellar spokesmen for the industry believe that their most difficult period may be over The figures are dismal Production of tractors and com- bines fell 33 percent to record low of units according to Stark's a trade publication Farm equipment officials say all farm tractors with less than 100 horsepower sold in the United States are made overseas Sales of farm tractors over 40 horsepower both and made in the United States have fallen from in 1980 to in 1985 and just for 1986 sales INSIDE Comics B6 Daily Record C3 Northeast through October according to the Farm and Industrial Equipment In- in Chicago And sales of combines plummeted from in 1980 to in 1985 and in the first 10 months of 1986 Nevertheless there's a feeling that the industry has bottomed said Lance Self a information coordinator for the institute Some of the underlying factors depressing sales look a little more positive Selfa said 22 percent of all com- bines sold in the United States last year were sold during October He attributed the surge in sales to prospects for a good harvest anti- cipation of income and a desire to add the equipment during 1986 for tax and depreciation reasons WHILE IT IS too soon to say whether the spurt in sales will carry over to 1987 among the factors ing a more optimistic outlook for business according to Selfa are lower interest rates the declining value of the dollar in international markets and lower energy costs President Emmett Barker added that farmers in 1987 have the potential of boosting their receipts by record payments through government grams And farm debt has been paid down a few percentage points in the last year It's possible that real net farm income could be the highest since Barker said The industry we knew five years ago has not Barker said It is made up of companies who have large companies and medium and small companies who have watched every nickel and consolidated to viable units AMONG THE major changes cited by Stark's The 1985 purchase of Inter- national Harvester by Case Both are owned by Tenneco In 1986 the company also over bankrupt Steiger Tractor Inc Klockner Humboldt Deutz of West Germany bought Allis Chalmers ness renamed it closed Allis tractor works but kept combine manufacturing in Independence Mo Allied Products took over White Farm Equipment e Ford tractor acquired the New Holland farm equipment line from Sperry Corp and called the resulting entity Ford New Holland Ford is in the process of transferring all its tractor manufacturing to overseas locations Ltd changed its named to Varity Corp and has See FARM EQUIPMENT Continued on page A2 col 3 Benefits not assured after leaves WASHINGTON AP under no special legal obligation to pay unemployment benefits to women who lose their jobs after taking maternity leave the Supreme Court ruled today The court said a federal law ring discrimination based on pregnancy in unemployment benefit payments bans states from singling out pregnancy for unfavorable ment only The law does not mandate preferential treatment for pregnant workers the court said The decision is a defeat for a woman refused unemployment benefits after being denied ment as a Kansas City Mo cashier when she wanted to return from maternity leave Just last week the court in inter- a separate federal law ruled that states may require employers to give pregnant workers job tions not available to other ees The justices in that decision upheld a California law requiring employers to grant unpaid leaves of absence and insure reinstatement for women whose pregnancies leave them un- able to work even if leaves are not granted for any other disability But today the court said no such special protection was intended by Congress when it passed the Federal See RULING Continued on page A2 col 3
