DATELINE–Manhattan

Machinery left running unmanned, explosion at E. Beigh factory

Thousands protest extension of workday into evening

An estimated 15,000 factory workers clogged the streets of Manhattan in the wee hours of last night protesting longer working hours and causing untold damage to industrial establishments.

The crowds of clamoring men and women, most of whom abandoned their posts in the textile mills and manufacturing establishments along the Bowery to join the manifestation of loosely ordered mayhem, marched north until meeting a corridor of policemen along 34th Street, where they then stood their ground for another two hours listening to extemporaneous declamations by members of various organizations for the enforcement of factory laws. It is the opinion of those who witnessed the beginnings of the sudden and violent disturbances that employees of the E. Beigh textile factory in the Bowery were responsible for inciting the general pandemonium that ensued as workers from other factories joined the riot.

Anguish Into Anger

Shortly after 10 o’clock a thunderous explosion was heard in the vicinity of the E. Beigh factory. The explosion, heard as far away as the Brooklyn dockyards, shattered many a shop window on the surrounding blocks.

It is believed that the loud blast was the result of saboteurs who, blind with rage over the death of a young factory girl, introduced iron rods into one of the factory’s cutting machines, bringing the mechanism to a fiery halt with a violent swiftness.

This scene of willful destruction was preceded by a gruesome accident on the second floor of the factory wherein a young girl who was feeding cloth into a device for trimming was yanked into the sharp maw of the machine as far as her elbows. While her piteous cries echoed throughout the building, workers attempted to wrest her from the rollers that continued to pull her deeper into the machine’s razor-lined bowels. However, the poor girl died before relief could be administered.

Incandescent Light Blamed

Though city ordinances forbid women and children from wage work between the hours of 9 o’clock in the evening and 6 o’clock in the morning, many employers in the Bowery ignore these strictures with both regularity and impunity, and it is believed the number of factories that violate these laws, enacted for the protection of the women and children, has multiplied in recent years due to the favorable atmosphere and ample resources of today’s economy.

Some who are familiar with the sundry practices of manufacturing assert that the increasing demand for workingmen to labor into the night, as much as 18 hours a day according to some of the orations of last night, has been facilitated by the introduction of incandescent lights, which by their ingenious design are less costly to operate than gas lighting.

But weariness of the worker has led to accidents on the order of crippling of hands, chronic fatigue, loss of digits and limbs, and, in extreme cases, death.

Eight-Hour Day Proposed

Following on the heels of a thorough inspection of the devastation wreaked upon his engines of production, the manufacturer Geoffrey E. Beigh declared his company’s intention to continue its established system of hours. The firm reports that it generously offers scrip to workers who are paid by the day for their work but are required to put in increasingly longer hours. Wageworkers at the E. Beigh mill and other factories are pleading for a reform of labor rules and, according to several parties familiar with the state governance, Mayor Van Wyck has expressed a keen interest in upholding the rights of the toiler. Amongst the list of improvements to the conditions of the working classes under consideration are the institution of an eight-hour day and the abandonment of scrip as legitimate tender for the rendering of hours worked in excess of a standard work shift.

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[Due to a Y2K error, computers at South to the Future misidentified the current year as 1900, rather than 2000. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We expect a patch to be implemented in time for next week’s story.]

DATELINE–New York

While much of the world is bracing for the worst come Jan. 1, 2000, some investors, government agencies, and nonprofits have already begun to look beyond the crisis to a potential financial windfall.

Economists are calling it the “Y2K dividend,” and it may be the biggest cash influx to the global economy in decades. PaineWebber’s chief strategist, Edward M. Kerschner, predicts that the greater information-processing capabilities resulting from Y2K-related computer upgrades will lead to substantial boosts in productivity around the world.

According to Stefan Blauberg, chief economist at the forecasting firm Standard and Poor’s DRI, expects the Y2K dividend to arrive after an initial recessionary hiccup. “By 2004, we should begin to experience the first signs of a renewed boom that is largely the product of today’s Y2K spending.”

Some analysts predict the U.S. government will snare the largest share of the Y2K dividend, citing a broader tax base and even a few proposed tax increases. A bill introduced in the Senate earlier this month pegs a 4 percent increase on federal public works spending to the arrival of the Y2K boon.

But any Y2K-funded measures are going to have to pass muster with Silicon Valley interests who believe they are, in large part, responsible for the Y2K dividend.

“The computer industry is bringing in this money,” says Andy Etheridge, a lobbyist for high-tech firms, “and they want to make sure it is not spent on programs that would hurt the competitive edge the U.S. has when it comes to high technology.” Etheridge believes the Y2K dividend should be reinvested in telecommunications and education rather than expanding “already bloated social welfare programs.”

The debate over how to spend the Y2K dividend may get even more contentious as nonprofits enter the fray. The United Nations, for example, is advocating that resources generated by Y2K preparations be plowed into what it calls the next Y2K disaster: the AIDS/HIV epidemic in Africa.

In a report issued to coincide with media coverage of Y2K, the U.N.’s commission on AIDS dubs the virus “the next millennium bug” and calls for emergency action on the level of current Y2K efforts. Of the 23 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, nearly two-thirds, almost 14 million persons, live in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Having averted financial catastrophe due to a computer bug,” urges Albert Achebe, an economist with UNAIDS, “we must now focus on the imminent disasters that will be caused by the biological threat of HIV infection.”

UNAIDS estimates that the epidemic will set back development efforts on the African continent by 100 years, incurring significant costs to international financial markets.

Despite such dire predictions, Paul Borsic of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government doubts the Y2K dividend will end up being spent on a foreign social cause regardless of its financial implications for the U.S.

“The high-tech sensibility is extremely solutions-oriented,” argues Borsic, “so if they have any say in the matter, which they will, it stands to reason that the funds will be spent on creating new tools rather than solving age-old problems.”

DATELINE–New York

At the chic SoHo offices of Vivarium, one of New York’s hottest Internet design firms, the third bottle of bubbly has just been uncorked. The staff of 27 is celebrating the holidays and the close of a profitable year with an elaborate “Secret Santa” gift exchange underwritten by the company itself. Senior Web Designer Amanda Connelly saunters up to the 15-foot tree, decked out in Sanrio figurines, that dominates the Vivarium lounge and selects a brightly wrapped present bearing her name. She squeals with delight as she tears the paper away revealing a soft and cuddly polar bear doll. “Oh my god, where did you find it?” she exclaims. “I’m sooooo in love.”

Egged on by her co-workers, a beaming Connelly squeezes the white teddy bear. The audience strains to hear the bear’s response. “I love you,” the bear chimes, but the singsong voice of the doll is quickly drowned out by staffers who have started to yell, “Squeeze it again, squeeze it again.”

“Why are you hurting me?” whines the bear, and the Vivarium office roars with laughter.

Move over Furby, it’s time to make room for the bipolar bear.

The offbeat gift of choice for 1999 is harder to find than the most sought-after Pokemon cards. That’s because the bipolar bear, manufactured by the educational products maker Funtastix, is not actually a toy. It’s a therapeutic device used by the mental health care profession to teach coping skills to the children of manic depressives.

But at Vivarium’s raucous holiday party, where the bipolar bear is still drawing big laughs 40 minutes after its introduction, the plight of such distressed children isn’t on the revelers’ radar screen. Joel Isackson, a computer programmer, is desperately trying to trade his own gift, a hand-held DVD player, for the temperamental teddy. “I saw one on eBay go for $500,” says Isackson, who admits to being a bit bipolar himself.

Not everyone, however, is taking the unlikely success of the bipolar bear in stride. Dr. Langley Porter, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical Center, worries about the impact such a loaded toy may have on the general public. “We live in a climate where mental illness is already a joke,” Porter warns. “The last thing we need is for this very specific therapeutic aid to be made into a running gag.”

Porter uses the so-called bipolar bear (which is marketed to the health care industry as the “BPD Ambassador") to encourage children to discuss anxieties related to bipolar disorder, or BPD. Together with other pediatric psychiatrists, Porter is pressuring Funtastix to limit sales of the stuffed animal to medical professionals.

The San Francisco-based Funtastix claims that it doesn’t market the BPD Ambassador to the general public and has no plans to do so. Furthermore, the company says, it has been unfairly criticized for the growing popularity of the talking doll. “This is not a prescription drug,” explains Ana Machado, Funtastix’s general sales manager, “so we can hardly restrict sales without hurting our own ability to provide quality therapeutic tools to the people who need them.”

Demand for the bipolar bear has thus far exceeded the available supply. Only 1,000 BPD Ambassadors were manufactured in 1999, although Funtastix is considering expanding future production runs. In New York City, store owner Adam Nayoge fields dozens of requests a day for the latest holy grail of hip Christmas toys. Nayoge is unfazed by the brewing controversy around the bipolar bear.

“It’s ironic, and then again it’s not,” explains Nayoge, whose shelves are stocked with the likes of the boxing nun and the Starr Report. “This is a complicated object for a complicated time – some buy it to laugh, and I guess some buy it to cry.”

DATELINE–Tijuana, Mexico

In the wake of the grizzly discovery of mass graves on a Mexican drug smuggler’s ranch in Juarez, a maverick attorney has announced an unprecedented legal campaign against U.S. drug consumers.

Juan Ocho, an attorney from Tijuana, Mexico, is seeking clients to join a massive civil suit against any and all U.S. citizens convicted for possession of marijuana and/or cocaine. According to a series of newspaper ads placed by Ocho’s law firm, families of persons either injured or killed in connection with drug trafficking are entitled to remuneration from drug consumers in the U.S.

The ads are running in more than three dozen newspapers throughout the country. In Mexico, where violence related to the booming drug-smuggling industry has reached epidemic proportions, it has become commonplace for entire families to be executed, infants included, over business disputes involving drugs bound for the U.S. market. The vast majority of narcotics for sale in the U.S. enter via the Mexican border.

According to the Mexican Institute of Organized Crime, in 1999 alone an estimated 300 drug-related murders occurred in Sinaloa, the Mexican state that is home to many of the nation’s most powerful drug suppliers. Another 300 killings have been reported in Baja California, a key stop on the U.S. drug supply route.

“We cannot wait any longer for the U.S. government to address the reckless behavior of its citizens, the consequences of which kill hundreds of innocent Mexicans each year,” declaims Ocho, whose own nephew was murdered in a restaurant shootout between competing drug traffickers. Adds Ocho, “Anyone who buys the drugs supplied by these murderers is an accomplice to their bloody crimes.”

The news of the impending class action suit has raised quite a few eyebrows in the U.S. legal establishment, where civil damages are rarely sought in connection with drug-related offenses. Ocho’s strategy is even more daring in light of current U.S. drug policy, which targets Latin American drug suppliers and U.S. dealers, rather than domestic drug consumers, in its enforcement efforts.

“Imagine a flurry of class action lawsuits against Americans who have been convicted on drug possession charges in the last 10 years,” muses George Storos, a professor of law at Stanford University. “It’s utter fantasy.”

But among lawyers who specialize in high-profile class action suits, there is less consensus as to whether or not Ocho and his clients will get their day in court. James Han, a product injury litigation specialist at Bartleby & Hermann, thinks Ocho may be able to ride on the coattails of current anti-gun and anti-tobacco suits. “We’re in a moment when judges and juries are willing to accept the link between the sins of the consumer and the responsibility of the manufacturer – why not vice versa?”

Ocho, who says he has already been contacted by more than 20 possible clients, is confident of the legal basis for the potentially precedent-setting class action suit. “Drug use is not a victimless crime in this day and age,” warns Ocho. Yet despite his aggressive stance, Ocho is not without sympathy for persons who have served time in U.S. prisons for drug-related offenses.

“Clearly, in a civil lawsuit, where a financial award is the only means of justice, we will not be targeting the poor who already pay disproportionately for their crimes,” explains the brash legal crusader. “However,” Ocho adds, “there are plenty of upper- and middle-class cocaine users who have yet to pay the full price for their recreational drug of choice.”

DATELINE–Cambridge, Mass.

Student leaders at Harvard University are demanding that the venerable institution abolish tuition fees for all undergraduates.

Leaders of the movement for a no-cost Harvard education claim that the bullish economy has inflated the school’s endowment to such proportions that charging undergraduates tuition has become financially unnecessary. The protesters are also demanding that the university, the oldest in the nation, adopt an aggressive approach to student admissions and retention so that no student will be denied access to the Ivy League university for financial reasons.

While it is not the first time that students at Harvard have petitioned for a universal “free ride,” the recent upsurge in the stock market has made it easier for them to back up their idealistic rhetoric with realistic figures. According to the Harvard University Fact Book, in 1998 the school enjoyed capital gains of 18.4 percent, yielding an added income of almost $2.4 billion generated solely by its endowment. By contrast, the school took in only $47 million from tuition fees last year.

The recent crusade to revoke tuition fees at Harvard has another, perhaps even more significant, advantage over previous failed attempts – student proponents who enjoy across-the-board support. Known popularly on campus as “Free Harvard,” the movement draws on a diverse base of student leaders and activists who have banded together to fight tuition fees.

At a recent and rowdy meeting of the Harvard-Radcliffe Undergraduate Council, representatives from the school’s Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, African-American, Asian-American, and Latino student groups turned out to support a resolution revoking the school’s authority to levy activity fees. While that resolution, which passed by an overwhelming vote, addressed only the involuntary tax that many universities tack on to tuition charges, the gesture is widely interpreted as merely the opening salvo in a war on tuition pricing.

The resolution’s sponsor, James Leverett, says, “The time for truly opening up Harvard to all Americans with proven academic prowess is now.” Leverett is the HRUC’s vice president and the most recent of eight generations of Leveretts to attend Harvard. Argues Leverett: “If the administration dedicated just one-tenth of the interest it earns off its stock holdings, every undergraduate could be released from the yoke of annual tuition.”

Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine points out that while tuition for Harvard’s 1999-2000 academic year has been set at $34,350, the university’s average financial aid package offsets total fees by as much as $24,200. “We appreciate the spirit of the protests,” says Rudenstine, “but we have a duty to the long-term health of the university. In short, we have to worry about the class of 2033 as well as the class of 2003.”

While Harvard boasts the richest endowment of any U.S. educational institution, almost all private colleges and universities maintain interest-bearing trusts funded in large part by the generosity of alumni. If the additional income generated by the current stock market boom were applied to tuition relief, private schools like Harvard and Stanford could end up costing less than the public universities subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.