I I
Weather: Friday, becoming mostly
sunny, high near 25. Friday night,
partly cloudy, low near 10. Saturday,
mostly cloudy, 30% chance of snow,
high 30-35.
A&E: Artists have ‘lofty’
ideas—Page 6.
Sports: Nebrask a ’ s wres
tling team will face some
tough competition in the
Cowboy Duals —Page 5.
LB1096 could lower wages, job applications
By Brandon Loomis
Staff Reporter
Two University of Nebraska-Lin
coln employers say a bill before the
Nebraska Legislature that would
lower the minimum wage of students
would not increase the number of
campus jobs for students, but could
decrease applicants.
The minimum wage for many high
school and college, students could
drop by 15 percent if LB 1096 is
passed.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. How
ard Lamb of Anselmo, would allow
employers to decrease minimum
wage for student-workers from $3.35
to $2.85 per hour. The purpose, he
said, is to give students more job
opportunities by making them
cheaper to employ.
“If certain students don’t have the
skills to justify the full minimum
wage,” he said, “they can find a job for
a slightly less amount and continue
their education.”
Doug Zatechka, UNL housing
director, said his department is unable
to fill all student positions at the cur
rent minimum-wage level. Although
numbers vary daily, he said, the de
partment is usually 20 or more stu
dents short
Daryl Swanson, director of Ne
braska unions, said the unions also
have problems attracting enough stu
dent-workers.
“We have job openings now, and
our positions have not been full since
last fall,” he said.
Swanson said that because busi
nesses like McDonald’s and Wendy’s
are affiliated with national chains that
follow federal minimum-wage laws,
the unions probably would be unable
to drop their wages.
Such “spotty compliance” to the
law would put any business offering
the lower wage at a disadvantage
when looking for quality help, hesaid.
“Somewhere in there is a good
idea,” he said. “It’s just hard to apply
in our marketplace.”
Zatechka said if the university
went to a lower than $3.35 per hour
student wage, while other services
nearby stayed at or above it, the hous
ing department would have an even
harder time filling its positions.
“That’s a fair hunk of money,” he
said. “I’m sure there are students who
would be willing to walk three blocks
off campus to get it.”
Pamela Dingman, a sophomore
mechanical engineering major and
former UNL snack bar worker, said
she quit her job partly because of the
$3.45 per hour wage.
“I can work at Hy-Vee for $4.50,”
she said.
Swanson also said demographics
suggest the bill may not be necessary.
High school classes in Nebraska are at
their lowest populations in years, he
said, and there are increasingly fewer
applicants than jobs.
Census data from 1980 shows there
were 417,882 people 16 and under in
Nebraska during that year, down from
479,014 in 1970.
Lamb said students who are al
ready employed probably would not
be affected by the bill, because em
ployers would be unable to jj'tify
cutting the wages of experienced
workers.
Those who would benefit, he said,
are inexperienced students who can
not compete for jobs with non-stu
dents. He said employers hire non
students over students to avoid sched
ule conflicts.
Lamb said he expects no opposi
tion to the bill, except from students
who feel they deserve the full mini
mum wage.
“I’m hoping that won’t happen,”
he said, “because they are the people
I’m trying to help.”
Life of helping others
suits retired professor
By Anne Mohri
Senior Reporter
Michael Grobsmith, a retired
j medical administration professor,
has decided to return to a career of
helping people.
“I don’t like being idle,”
Grobsmith said. ‘‘I don’t like being
in a volunteer social agency. I want
to be involved in my Field as a
teacher or doer or both.”
Grobsmith, 73, applied for the
Peace Corps and this semester
enrolled in an accelerated Spanish
course at the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln.
He expects the Peace Corps to
contact him within four to six
weeks, at which time he’ll be sent
to a language school.
Grobsmith said the Peace Corps
was impressed by his 50-year back
ground in health and is now trying
to coordinate his qualifications
with a country requesting help in
his field. The Corps has told him he
may be sent to Guatemala, Belize
or Honduras.
He earned his undergraduate
degree in medical administration
from New York University in New
York City in 1940 and his graduate
degree from Johns Hopkins Uni
versity in Baltimore in 1970.
Grobsmith taught at Case-Western
Reserve University in Cleveland
and retired from the University of
Illinois in Champaign-Urbana two
years ago.
He said he’s been interested in
Central America since he visited
his aunt in Cuba in 1932. When he
was 18, he said, he saw student and
liberal protesters shot by the re
gime of Fulgencio Batista.
As a member of the American
Public Health Association,
Grobsmith and 17 other physi
cians, nurses and administrators
traveled to Nicaragua for three
weeks in 1985. The croup'studicd
how the civil war in Nicaragua was
affecting health care there, he said.
Only three years earlier, Nicara
gua received the United Nations
prize for having made great strides
in health care, he said.
Grobsmith said the Contras
bombed Nicaraguan medical p<>sts
and killed a number of medical
personnel, including volunteers
from Canada, France and East
Germany.
The amount and quality of
health care in Nicaragua decreased
and infant mortality increased as a
result of the bombings.
After returning to the United
States, the group published a report
and condemned aid to the Contras.
“We lobbied senators and oth
ers, saying the war had to stop by
not supporting the Contras any
more,” Grobsmith said.
“United States policy has in
flicted severe damage on their
democratic aspirations and then on
their economics, and has kept them
in poverty and kept th^ir govern
ments unstable.”
Grobsmith was bom in Warsaw,
Mark Davis/Daily Nebraskan
Grobsmith
Poland, in 1914. Before his birth,
his father fled Poland to avoid the
draft. When Grobsmith was 4, his
father sent for his family to join
him in America.
He served as a medic for 4 1/2
years in the U.S. Air Force para
troops and glidertroops during
World War II.
RHA approves
increase proposal
for housing rates
By Janel Fuhrman
StaffReporter
The University of Nebraska-Lin
coln Residence Hall Association ap
proved a proposal Thursday night to
| increase the room and board rates by
: $140 for the next academic year.
The approved 1988-89 Housing
Rate Study still requires the signature
i or veto of the RHA president, but if he
1 fails to act within two weeks the docu
ment will move to the next step of
approval, RHA President Russ
Johnson said.
“I will not be signing or vetoing the
bill,” Johnson said. ‘‘I’m on the side of
I the residents who cannot afford the
increase in room and board. I am
neither rejecting or approving this
bill.”
The NU Board of Regents will
consider the rate study at its February
meeting.
The Committee on Residential
Enhancement and the Division of
University Housing’s proposal re
quested an 11.4 percent increase in
wages for housing employees along
with an anticipated 45-ccnt increase
in the minimum wage.
Doug Zatcchka, university hous
ing director, said salaries have to go
up.
‘‘It is more difficult to hire and keep
qualified workers for housing if we do
| not,” he said.
If the present room and board rates
are not increased, Zatcchka said there
would be a $560,521 budget deficit for
See RHA on 3
Fewer ASUN senators leave positions
By Micki Haller
Senior Reporter
While fewer AS UN senators have
vacated their seats this year than last
year, some reasons for leaving remain
the same.
Laura Schabloske’s resignation
Wednesday from the Association of
Students of the University of Ne
braska increased the number of sena
tors leaving to 10 this term. Four
graduate senator positions were never
filled because of lack of interest.
Last spring the Daily Nebraskan
reported that 18 senators left office
before their term expired.
“Actually, we’re doing pretty
good,” said John Bergmeyer, ASUN
first vice president
Senators this year and last cited
other commitments and apathy in the
senate when resigning.
ASUN President Andy Pollock
said he agreed that the senate had
some apathy, but he said it happens in
every group.
In Schabloske’s resignation letter,
she cited apathy, indecisiveness and
party politics in the senate as reasons
for withdrawing.
Schabloske, former arts & sciences
senator and Communications Com
mittee chairwoman, said during her
term and a half on senate, she hadn’t
seen anything happen. She said the
senators were unable to make strong
stands and many would not get in
volved with the issues.
“I believe in ASUN — it has the
potential... the group itself can do a
lot,” she said.
“They’re not, right now, represent
ing the students,” she said, pointing
out that less than five senators are non
greek. Schabloske is a member of
Alpha Chi Omega sorority.
Lori Nedrow, a former senator for
the business college, said she left
ASUN over Christmas break because
of other “major time conflicts.”
“The reason I resigned wasn’t
because of negative feelings towards
ASUN," she said.
Machellc Rediger said she had to
leave ASUN after three absences
because she needed to devote more
time to student teaching.
“I could have made the time if I
really wanted to,” the former home
economics college senator said.
Rediger said she wanted to voice
her concerns for her college and for
East Campus.
However, she said, “I really did not
feel involved at all,” because she was
from East Campus.”
The senate will miss Schabloske,
Bergmeyer said, because she did an
excellent job.
“She went about some things in the
wrong way,” he said. “If you’re in an
arganization and you’re upset with
something, you should change it.”
Schabloske, also a member of the
jxecutive board, said the senate
should feel bad because it is “losing
anc of the two senators who have done
anything.”
Pete Castellano, an arts and science
senator Schabloske praised, said the
only solution to the high turnover rate
is to get more people interested in
AS UN. He suggested offering aca
demic credit for senators and execu
tives.
“(Schabloske’s) leaving is an indi
cation of a bigger problem,” he said.