Thursday, August 8, 1974
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page -1he
Thrday Auut8 97 H IHIA AL Pg 1he
Area operators
t Sr'C2_ ''F stage wildct
t 25 strike to proU",test
union contract
By BARBARA CORNELL
An "unauthorized walkout" of more
than 200 operators at the local Michigan
Bell office yesterday has slowed its non-
automated services to a crawl.
Customers dialing "O" on the tele-
phone hear a recording that "due to an
unauthorized work stoppage" operators
are only to be used in emergencies. Di-
rectory assistance has also been slowed
and many of the repairmen and linemen
have refused to cross the picket line.
COMMUNICATION Workers of Ameri-
ca local 4011 President Fred Chase said
he Ions asked the picketers to return to
work since they riskkacourt injunction
ending the walkout.Ise asserted, how-
ever, that he will use nothing harsher
than words to force the operators to stop
striking.
The operatorswarepaskingdfor various
health 'nd dental benefits, but the cen-
tral issues are wages and early availa-
bility of the benefits provided for in their
tentative settlemnent.
A nationwide strike was originally
scheduled for Monday, but a settlement
AP Photo was announced at 11:30 Sunday night,
FRENCH TIGHTROPE walker Phillipe Petit is accompanied by police and only one half-hour before they were to
newsmen following his arrest yesterday in New York after he walked a high- walk out.
wire cable stretched between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. "I was really disappointed about the
Police reported Petit and two photographers hid overnight in one of the towers settlement," said one of the twenty oper-
and before dawn, set up the highwire. Petit was sentenced to giving a free ators marching in front of the local
demonstration of his talent to the children in Central Park. Michigan Bell office on E. Hoover.
Parisian a erialis t walk
sets newhight reco
"Like, I didn't believe it. I though they
had their story mixed up"
SHE SAID she had planned to be
striking for at least a month and added,
"I just don't think they bargained very
well. We were prepared for a strike and
when they settled at the last minute it
had to be a sell out"
One striker explained that the money
from telephone rate hikes does not go to
them, but rather to such expenses as
new trucks and office furniture. "If they
want a rate increase, we want one too,"
she shouted.
The operators have been working six
to eight hors per day, depending on the
shift, six days a week for the last two
months. They complained that many peo-
ple on welfare or ADC are making al-
most as much as they are.
"The cost of living is rising every
month, bot our wages aren't. Ask an op-
erator when was the last time they went
out to dinner or ate steak or bought a
new pair of shoes," one irate picketer
said. "We can't be expected to give peo-
ple good service if we're underpaid and
overworked."
Another protester insisted, "What
would you do if you had to spend all
day listening to people cuss you out and
ask for things like unlisted numbers that
they know they can't have. It takes a
special kind of person to be an opera-
tor. Let people be without us for a few
days and then decide if they need us or
not."
The operators plan to continue their
strike "as long as necessary" and they
will be joined by their co-workers in
Plymouth today who are protesting the
same conditions. This walkout will put
considerable stress on the ell tele-
phone system since it is the Plymouth
operators who usually take over in the
event of an Ann Arbor strike.
Ford allegedly
makes list of
potential VP's
CHICAGO (M - Vice President Ger-
ald Ford has drafted a preliminary list
of 14 potential candidates for vice presi-
dent in the event he becomes president,
The Chicago Sun-Times said.
Heading the list is former Defense
Secretary Melvin Laird, the newspaper
said in a Washington-datelined story in
today's edition.
.OTHER LEADING candidates were
reported to be Rep. Albert Quie, (R-
Minn.) and former GOP Sen. Charles
Goodell of New York.
Rounding out the all-Republican list
were former New York Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller, Sens. Howard Baker and
William Brock of Tennessee, Sen. Rob-
ert Taft of Ohio, Robert Stafford of Ver-
mont, Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Ed-
ward Brooke of Massachusetts, and
Charles Percy of Illinois; Rep. John An-
See SUN-TIMES, Page 5
NEW YORK (R)-A Parisian aerialist
dared death yesterday by skipping un-
announced accross a steel cable he had
strung between the quarter-mile-high
twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The stunt-which nearly doubled the
height record for a tightrope walk-in-
volved months of planning by more than
a half-dozen confederates who used hard-
hat disguises, forged identification and
stealth.
"THAT WAS the most beautiful place
in the world to walk," the elated French-
man, 25-year-old Philippe Petit, said
when his four 140-foot crossings were
over.
A street entertainer who beguiles block
parties and theater .crowds with his self-
taught juggling and unicycle antics,
Petit has walked two other notable tight-
ropes-between the towers of Notre Dame
Cathedral, in 1970, and the towers of the
bridge in Australia's Sydney Harbor, in
1973.
But the next tightrope he'll walk is the
law's: He was arrested on misdemeanor
charges of trespass and disorderly con-
duct.
UNINHIBITED, though handcuffed,
Petit performed for television cameras
during his booking by balancing a police
officer's hat on his nose. Then, with a
little smile, he flipped it upright onto
his head.
Was he afraid?
"You don't have time for fear," he
said. "I was dying of happiness. The
feeling is hard to describe. You could be
flying-it's close to flying . . .
"I saw the city waking up, which
was beautiful."
PETIT'S WALK 1,350 feet above an
overcast Manhattan bettered by 600 feet
the crossing of Karl Wallenda over
Georgia's Tallulah Gorge, according to
the Guinness Book of Records.
Only a handful of passers-by were on
hand when Petit began his walk, but
enthralled crowds soon gathered as he
repeated his feat after an arduous night
spent with three friends rigging cable
and guy wires. A bow-and-arrow device
was used to string the cable between the
towers.
IT WAS NOT a publicity stunt, he
maintained, but a thrill like climbing
Mt. Everest.
"Don't connect this with looking for a
job. I don't need anything," Petit said,
seemingly oblivious to the publicity and
its likely rewards of endorsements and
talk show appearances. "I am a high-
wire walker, and that was the most
beautiful place in the world to put a
wire to walk."
Two of his fellow schemers said Petit
years ago filed away a photograph of a
model of the soaring towers near Wall
Street. Then he visited the city in Jan-
uary.
"I look around and see what New
York is like," Petit recalled. "And then,
I see these two tall towers ..."
Heroin dealer convicted
By DELLA DIPIETRO
Alonzo "Fat Lonnie" Malone, alleged-
ly the biggest heroin pusher in Washte-
naw County, was convicted yesterday
afternoon of four counts of heroin deliv-
ery.
Malone faces a maximum sentence of
13 to 20 years. He is scheduled for sen-
tencing on Aug. 23.
He still faces charges from two addi-
tional cases, which include charges of
possession of marijuana, possession of a
concealed weapon and two federal counts
of heroin delivery.
According to Assistant County Prose-
cutor Lynwood Noah, the heroin con-
fiscated was of poor quality. "Mr. Ma-
lone was an experienced businessman;
he was cutting down on quality to maxi-
mize profits," he added.
Malone, 36, had been working as a
cook for an Office of Economic Oppor-
tunity day care center when he was ar-
rested last February 20.
James "Dirty Red" Amison, consider-
ed to be the second biggest heroin push-
er in the County, was convicted last
July 18 and faces sentencing this Friday.
Noah added that the heroin supply in
Washtenaw County has decreased be-
cause of the County's methadone pro-
gram and the cut in Turkey's recent
heroin output.