Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 26, 1993 TAG: 9302260466
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN BUSINESS
GM wage guarantee runs out of moneyDETROIT - The fund guaranteeing full wages for about 20,000 General Motors workers has run out of money, forcing them to get by on unemployment benefits that are about 30 percent below their regular pay.
Workers at many plants were told Wednesday that the $1.7 billion Jobs Bank has run dry. Those affected will be laid off indefinitely Monday.
The Jobs Bank was created for union employees who were laid off for more than 36 weeks since September 1990. Those employees were called back to work and given full pay, even if there was no specific job for them to fill.
GM spokesman Tom Pyden said that as of Feb. 1, there were 20,200 workers in the Jobs Bank. - Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Lynchburg firm wins accelerator contract
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Los Alamos National Laboratory has signed $2.6 million worth of contracts with six companies - including one in Virginia - that will help design a particle accelerator and related systems to produce tritium.
Babcock and Wilcox of Lynchburg received $600,000 for target-blanket design and engineering, coolant loop design and safety systems.
Other contractors are Bechtel Corp. of San Francisco; Grumman Aerospace Corp. of Bethpage, N.Y.; Maxwell Balboa of San Diego; Merrick and Co. of Denver; and General Atomics of San Diego. - Associated Press
Microsoft to appeal `Windows' ruling
WASHINGTON - Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it would appeal the government's refusal to grant trademark protection to the word "Windows" - the name of the software giant's best-selling computer program.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company would fight the ruling by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in administrative appeal proceedings and, if necessary, in federal court.
Microsoft developed its Windows program to make IBM-compatible personal computers, with their MS-DOS operating systems, as easy to use as Apple's Macintosh computers. Both Windows and Macintosh use visual symbols to represent various commands.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., sold 12 million copies of Windows last year.
The trademark office said in a letter last week that the word "Windows" couldn't be protected because it was already a term used in the computer industry when Microsoft introduced its product in 1983. - Associated Press
136 RTC officials got hefty bonuses
WASHINGTON - More than $1 million in bonuses were paid last year to 136 officials of the federal agency in charge of the savings and loan cleanup, figures requested by a House subcommittee show.
Bonuses for 130 top officials of the Resolution Trust Corp., totaling $978,500, were approved by the agency's departing president and chief executive officer, Albert V. Casey. The agency's inspector general, John J. Adair, approved $34,700 in bonuses for six officials in his office.
The awards ranged from $1,500 to $25,000 and included 32 bonuses of $10,000 or more. The total bonus amount of $1,013,200 was more than double the $444,500 in bonuses paid by the agency in 1991.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Donald Riegle, D-Mich., sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen asking him to review the RTC's bonus policy. - Associated Press