Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, July 18, 1997

L.A. convention exec
with isle ties resigns

The longtime director of the Los Angeles Convention Center has resigned, a year after it was revealed he earned more than $80,000 counseling Hawaii convention officials.

Dick Walsh, who has run the Convention Center for nearly a quarter century, will leave city government in January. He had a yearly salary of $134,238, and his annual pension benefits will be about $70,000.

Mayor Richard Riordan had ordered Walsh last fall to stop working with the Hawaii Convention Center and to devote all his efforts to bringing business to Los Angeles.

Walsh, whose consulting arrangement had been approved by Riordan, made dozens of trips to Hawaii and was chairman of the selection committee that chose Spectacor Management Group to manage the Hawaii center.

Philadelphia-based Spectacor is currently searching for a replacement for Lynn Thompson, who resigned as general manager of the Hawaii Convention Center earlier this month. Dick Schaff, Spectacor senior vice president of operations, declined to say if Walsh is a candidate for that job.

Young Brothers, union to meet Wednesday

Union members representing dockworkers at Young Brothers Ltd. say a strike against the Hawaii shipping company will only be a last resort if contract talks break off.

Robert Girald, vice president of Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said yesterday that although members are in favor of a strike, the union won't take that step until it meets with company officials Wednesday.

Talks between the union and Young Brothers broke off July 2 and a two-day sickout by dockworkers, crippling the company last week.

The company and the union decided earlier this week to try to resume talks.

Suit over racist e-mail
thrown out of court

NEW YORK -- A federal judge dismissed a $30 million lawsuit against Morgan Stanley & Co. by two black employees who alleged white workers sent "vile, racist e-mail" on the company message system.

The suit claimed the plaintiffs, Yolanda Owens and Edward Hutton, were victims of a hostile work environment.

U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote found "this single incident, while entirely reprehensible, cannot form the basis for a claim of hostile work environment."

The 1995 message described how an 18-year-old black student who is in ninth grade completes an easy homework assignment by using common words improperly.