8 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 15, 1998

NATION WORLD

Herald,
Times win
Pulitzer
prizes
NEW YORK (AP) - 'he Grand
Forks Herald, which published through
floods that devastated the North Dakota
city and its own plant, won the 1998
Pulitzer Prize for public service yester-
day. The New York 'Times won three of
journalism's most prestigious awards
and the Los Angeles Times won two.
It was the first Pulitzer for the
Herald, whose building was destroyed a
year ago this week by a fire that swept
through Grand Forks in the midst of the
flooding. Most of the news room's 57
employees were flood victims.
The paper continued publishing with
help from other Knight Ridder newspa-
pers, including the St. Paul (Minn.)
Pioneer Press, which provided comput-
er equipment and printed the Herald
during the crisis.
"It would have been worth it, even if
we hadn't gotten the prize," said Jeff
Beach, news editor of the 37,000-circu-
lation Herald. "People in the communi-
ty are starting to talk about remember-
ing the Herald again, from that special
time during the flood when it was being
snapped up at all the refugee centers and
how very important it was to people. I
think that meant more than the prize"
Also receiving a Pulitzer was The
Riverdale Press, a New York City week-
ly with a circulation of 11,800. Editor
and co-publisher Bernard Stein was
honored for editorials on politics and
city issues.

Brown 'U' passes
code of conduct
J protecting laborers

*

By Jennie Leszkiewicz
Brown Daily IHJerald
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- After sever-
al months of negotiations with the
Student Labor Alliance, Brown
University passed a code of conduct
yesterday guaranteeing that all Brown
apparel sold in the Brown Bookstore
will be produced under safe labor con-
ditions.
Members of the SLA hailed the
Brown initiative as the first code of
its kind to institute greater protec-
tions for women workers, union orga-
nization, greater environmental
preservation and the creation of a
more encompassing system of wages
and benefits for workers.
Brown is also expected to hire an
independent monitoring agency that
will investigate the working conditions
of all factories manufacturing Brown
apparel. Brown will shoulder the costs
for the monitoring team with other uni-
versities.
"We are very pleased," said Daniel
Massey, a member of SLA. "It is a
great first step towards improving
conditions around the world.
However, we have to remember that it
is just a first step."
Brown's announcement yesterday
could not have come at a better time,
Massey said. The passage of the code
came in the wake of a New York Times'
op-ed piece by columnist Bob Herbert
claiming that Champion employees
received pitiable wages for their work
in a baseball cap factory in the
Dominican Republic. Two of the
women claimed they earned barely 8
cents to make a $20 dollar cap that is
then sold at some of the nation's major
universities, including Brown.
1 i T ,%f1 ' t\ t

The issue of sweatshop labor
received national media attention late,
with revelations about poor labor con-
ditions in factories producing clothing
for talk-show host Kathie Lee Gitford's
K-Mart line and headlines exposing a
substandard working environment .at
sneaker giant Nike's overseas factories.
'lIwo other universities, Duke and
Notre Dame, major players in the colle-
giate athletic apparel industry, recently
passed codes of conduct similar to
Brown's.
Two workers cited in the New Ywrk
Times, Kenia Rodriguez and Rosei
Reyes, both employed in the
Dominican factory, are slated to speak
at Brown today about their brutal work-
ing environments at a rally The rally i,
intended to show support for the two
women and universally safe labor con-
ditions.
"It was really important for anot
school to raise the bar after the D
code was passed," Massey said
"After the New York Times article,
couldn't see the administration jus
sitting by.
Today "will be a celebration of th
code. Even though it is not exactly wha
we wanted, it is good," Massey said.
The SI A's initial proposed code o
conduct called for a stipulation requir
ing all manufacturers of Brown para
phernalia to comply with a living w
This provision would have manda
manufacturers to provide a compen.
satory sum in addition to minimur
wage --- an initiative absent from thi
final version.
But the new code of conduct wil
preclude companies from firing preg
nant employees and forcing women t
submit to mandatory pregnancy tests. I

AP PHOTO
Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel sits on the unfinished set her off-broadway production, "How I Learned to Drive,"
March 30, 1998, at the Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska.

Tipped in advance that he had won,
but not sure whether to believe it, Stein
sent a reporter to Columbia University
for the announcement.
"Nobody wakes up in the morning
and says, 'I'm going to win a Pulitzer
Prize today," Stein said. "I wasn't will-
ing to believe it and now we're all
drinking champagne"
'Ibe New York Times won fbr beat
reporting, international reporting and
criticism, and the Los Angeles Times
was honored for breaking news report-

ing and feature photography.
The beat reporting prize went to
Linda Greenhouse for coverage of the
Supreme Court, while the international
reporting prize went to the limes' staff'
for a series on the ehect:; of drug cor-
ruption in Mexico. Michiko Kakutani's
writing on books and contemporary lit-
erature was honored with the criticism
prize.
Greenhouse said she had been tipped
in advance to her victory. "'Ilhere's not
too many secrets in Washington," she

joked. "I hope the award might inspire
editors and news directors to take the
beat seriously," she said.
Craig Pyes was one of the four
reporters who worked on the Times'
Mexico series for a year, during which
they received death threats and were
sued by politicians they had linked to
drug trafficking
"I hope it sends a message to
reporters in Fatin America who have
been brutalized by governments while
they were covering stories," Pycs said.

Chicago-based Ameritech to cut 5,000'jobs

CHICAGO (AP) -- Ameritech Corp. said yester-
day it plans to cut 5,000 jobs this year, or nearly 7 per-
cent of its worldwide work force, as it begins a five-
year cost-cutting program aimed at boosting profits.
The company, which earlier in the day announced it
had taken charge of $64 million against its first-quar-
ter earnings, said the workers would come from its
cellular and home-security divisions. But spokesper-
son Jerrell Ross declined to elaborate on where the
bulk of those workers are based or whether any of the
cuts would come through attrition.
"Last month, we outlined plans to reduce costs,
and this quarter, we moved ahead as planned," Ross
said.
The parent of phone companies in Michigan,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin, Chicago-based

Ameritech has been working to expand its range of
communications services to keep revenue flowing as
competitors enter the local phone market for the first
time, cutting into its monopoly.
Ameritech has 73,000 workers worldwide in
such fields as local and long-distance service, cel-
lular, paging, Internet access and security-moni-
toring.
In its earnings, Ameritech reported its 18th consec-
utive quarter of earnings growth of 10 percent or
more, excluding the charges taken.
But its cellular operations showed slower growth,
adding only 168,000 customers in the first quarter,
compared to 197,000 in the year-ago period. Ie
company lowered its wireless prices to fend off the
competition.

The Baby Bell is beginning to "feel squeezed by
competition and is taking prudent steps to minimize
losses as much as they can,' said analyst Anth
Ferrugia at A.G. Edwards.
lerrugia noted Amenritech's earnings have been 1
stered in recent quarters more by acquisitions I
growth in its core local and cellular phone busines
requiring it to either keep up a frantic pace of acqu
tion or begin trimming some of the fat from cer
businesses.
"One of the ways to increase your margins is
take some people out of your business," Ferru
said. "It's not because (Ameritech chief execu
Richard) Notebaert is being greedy ... it's what t
and every Baby Bell is going to have to do to sur
long-term."
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caters to elderly


list-
tain The Wshington Post
NORTHJIELD, Minn. - Spring
s to quarter at the Cannon Valley Elder
ugia Collegium began last week, Students
tive made their way to classes rather slowly,
hey but hardly anyone was late. Some came
vive in wheelchairs, others used walkers.
Some steadied themselves by leaning on
friends, arriving arm-in-arm with a class-
mate.
Blind in one eye, Julia Savina sat
pitched forward in her seat, using a mag-
nifying glass to read the course syllabus
she had just been handed. The instructor
prints everything in extra large type for
the students in his technology class, but
Savina still needs a little help seeing.
She is 81.
Last semester, she enrolled in a course
on Amish history but had to drop out
when she fell and hurt her hip. The
retired schoolteacher returned to studies
after four weeks of physical therapy.
"My husband died in 1995, and I
really need this mental stimulation,'
Savina said, easing into a chair to talk
after class. "I had so much fun last term
learning to write poetry, which I never
thought I could do."
Gray-haired and frail, she smiles as
she leans back into her chair. "You can

only play so much bingo, you know."
And so it goes here at perhaps th
nation's only institution of highe
education designed specifically
the aged. The students' bodies may,
weakened, but their spirits are will
ing. If some are hard of hearing, thei
minds are hungry.
'The Cannon Valley Elder Collegiur
opened last fall in this cozy little two-col
lege town 40 miles south of Minneapoli
A group of retired professors and acade
mics rounded up roughly $8,000 in gov
ernment grants and recruited nearly 30 c
the former faculty members who li*
town to teach college-level courses wit
titles such as "The Drama of Henri
Ibsen" "Goethe's Faust" and "The Fi
Trade in North America."
Enrollment this quarter has jumpe
to about 50 students, most over -ag
65 and many in their eightief
although no one knows for sur
because "at our age we don't g
around asking people how old the
are," said Ron Ronning, a retired
school humanities teacher.
Collegium students can receive cor
tinuing education credits, but no grad
are given, no degrees conferred. No or
here is looking for any of that.
Ford sued
for racial.l
prejudice
BALTIMORE (AP) - Bla
employees at a Maryland service cent
sued Ford Motor Credit Co. for $6(
million, claiming racial discriminat
in the hiring, evaluation and promotie
of workers.
Ford officials said they had not se(
the lawsuit, filed yesterday in feder
court, but took such allegations set
ously and would investigate the claim
Black employees at the Region
Operations Center in Columbia sa
they were asked to train new emplo:
ees, only to have white hires soon su
pass them in pay and position. Bla
employees also said they were
ished more harshly for minor in
tions than their non-black counterpart
the lawsuit said.
The suit, filed on behalf of 12 cu
rent and former black employee
names the credit company as well

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