The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, the Captain of the super tanker that caused America's worst oil spill was reported to have alcohol problems. President Bush sent top federal officials to Alaska to consider taking over the cleanup. The Air Force grounded B-1 bombers with fuel tank problems. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, the Alaska oil spill is again our lead focus. Joining us to try to explain how it could have happened are two navigational experts, Frank Flyntz of the Coast Guard and Gary Roberts, a tanker captain. Next, an update report from Afghanistan, where the fighting continues, and finally, the mommy track. With us are the woman whose article started the uproar over a separate career track for mothers, Felice Schwartz, and a critic of the thesis, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: There were several developments in the Alaska oil spill today. Tanker resumed in Valdez Harbor, President Bush sent a high level task force to Alaska to assess the cleanup efforts, officials said mechanical efforts to contain the spill had stopped and they would now try to burn off the oil, and federal officials investigated reports that the captain of the super tanker that caused the spill had alcohol problems. Captain Joseph Hazelwood was not on the bridge when the Exxon Valdez ran aground Friday night and started leaking 1/4 million barrels of oil. The National Transportation Safety Board said reports that Hazelwood had drunk driving convictions was an area of concern. President Bush sent top federal officials to the scene to evaluate the efforts to clean up the oil.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The main thing is to get it cleaned up to protect the very precious environment up there and to get it to be sure that everything's being done to clean up this disaster. They've been shipping oil out of here for a long long time and never had anything of this magnitude or this concern, so the big thing is to correct. I don't know how you'd design against what appears to be the cause here, when you have a ship that's out of the channel going 12 knots and ripping the bottom out of the most modern tanker that's ever been built to haul this oil, but I think we need to assess the matter and judge it on its merits, the merits, and make our conclusions later on.

MR. MacNeil: The officials the President sent to Alaska were Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner, William Reilly, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and a commandant of the Coast Guard, Paul Yost. Leading environmental groups called on the President to reconsider allowing further oil exploration in Alaska. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Another accident, one that happened 10 years ago today, is back in the news. A small group of people lit candles outside the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in Middletown, Pennsylvania, early this morning to commemorate the nation's worst nuclear accident. In the 10 years since, one of the reactors has been put back in operation while workers continue the cleanup in the damaged unit. During the accident, the reactor's radioactive core lost cooling water, causing half of it to melt and releasing radioactive gas into the air. In Washington today, the advocacy group Public Citizen released a report charging that more than 33,000 nuclear plant mishaps, most of them minor, have been reported to the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the decades since Three Mile Island.

MR. MacNeil: The federal government has ordered General Motors to recall more than 600,000 cars for defective pollution control equipment. The order by the Environmental Protection Agency covers the 1984 Cutlass Supreme, Delta 88, 98, Toronado, and Custom Cruiser, and the 1984 Buick LeSabre, Estate Wagon, Electra and Riviera, all cars equipped with a 5 liter engine. EPA said GM will notify owners by mail that dealers will make free repairs.

MS. WOODRUFF: The B1-B bomber which the U.S. relies on to carry part of its nuclear payload in the event of a war has been temporarily grounded. The Air Force announced that it is suspending all training flights in the B1-B because of a fuel tank puncture discovered yesterday duringa routine pre-flight check at an Air Force base in Texas.

MR. MacNeil: Former Attorney General Edwin Meese took the witness stand today in the Oliver North trial. He was questioned about the investigation he conducted for President Reagan into the diversion of Iran arms sale money to the Nicaraguan Contras. Under questioning by the prosecution lawyer, Meese said North initially denied involvement in the diversion but later changed his story. Meese then acknowledged to North's lawyer that the discovery of the diversion was his worst nightmare come true. He said he warned the President that this revelation could topple his Presidency.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Iranian Ayatollah who had been expected to replace that nation's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, will be the successor no longer. Tehran Radio announced that the Ayatollah Ali Montezari, previously considered one of Iran's more radical leaders, had agreed to step aside and let someone else become the designated successor. The move comes amid several other resignations in Iran's foreign ministry. Meanwhile, Iraq has agreed to pay reparations for its missile attack on the Navy frigate USS Stark. The State Department said today that the United States have reached a tentative agreement, calling for Iraq to pay more than $27 million to the families of the 37 American sailors killed in the 1987 Persian Gulf attack. Iraqi officials said the attack was an accident.

MR. MacNeil: In Afghanistan, the country's President offered Muslim rebels local autonomy if they agreed to stop fighting. The rebels would be allowed to keep their weapons and elect local councils in their home regions. There was no response from the rebels. In Yugoslavia, there was more violence over the government's decision to limit the autonomy of ethnic Albanians. Police fired on hundreds of Albanian demonstrators today, killing one and bringing the death toll to twenty-one.

MS. WOODRUFF: Back in this country, a judge in New York State today took last year's America's Cup sailing prize away from the U.S. entry and gave it instead to a New Zealand club. The justice ruled that the San Diego Yacht Club which won last September's trophy after a race off the Coast of Southern California had violated the spirit of the deed which established the America's Cup 101 years ago. The San Diego crew used a catamaran, a multi-hull craft that is faster and more maneuverable than the single hull sailboats traditionally used. That's it for today's News Summary. Just ahead, navigating a super tanker through tricky waters, the war in Afghanistan, and the mommy track debate. FOCUS - TROUBLED WATERS

MR. MacNeil: Our first story again today is the massive oil spill off the Coast of Alaska. It happened when an Exxon super tanker hit a reef with an uncertified third mate in charge while the captain was not on the bridge. Following the accident, Captain Hazelwood's record of conviction for drunk driving has become public. In a moment, we'll talk to a tanker captain and a Coast Guard official about the training and qualifications of super tanker captains, but first a look at their task and the training behind it from a 1979 Nova documentary that was filmed after another big oil spill off the Coast of France.

SPOKESMAN: Exxon owns and operates the largest tanker fleet in the world. A pilot is now boarding one of the fleet's biggest ships, the SO Japan, to help guide its 400,000 ton bulk into its berth in Rotterdam. The pilot joins the captain on the wing of the bridge. Handling a tanker of this size is an extremely delicate art. The massive bulk of the tanker makes it ponderous and slow to respond to commands to stop or turn. Of all the causes of tanker accidents, it's human error the industry worries about most. Eight out of ten tanker accidents, including the Torrie Canyon, the Argo Merchant, and the AMOCO Cadiz, involve errors of judgment and sometimes gross incompetency on the part of the ship's master or officers, and it's in the final few yards of a tanker's journey that the smallest miscalculation can lead to disaster. The view from this full scale mock-up of a tanker bridge is of the approach to New York Harbor projected onto video screens. The trainee has to pick his way safely through the images of harbor obstructions and other ships. Behind the scenes, an army of technicians control the computer-assisted simulator. Devices like this are expensive, and it's only the richest countries and largest tanker owners that can afford them.

MR. MacNeil: Earlier today Charlayne Hunter-Gault talked to Eugene Guest Director of Marine Safety International, a company that uses simulators like the one we've just seen to train captains of super tankers. One of the areas they simulate is the Prince William Sound where the Exxon Valdez ran aground.

F. EUGENE GUEST, Marina Safety International: It's really not a dangerous area other than, of course, you have the hazards of ice and the hazards of wind that comes up occasionally and gusting wind that comes up in a very high velocity.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now you've said that this ship is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall. How long would it take to stop a ship that long?

F. EUGENE GUEST: Well, a crash stop on a ship of that size would probably take ten or twelve minutes, depending upon the kind of engine it has and how many revolutions they can get astern and when those revolutions they had can be applied. I don't the kind of engine they had, whether a steamer or diesel.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If you suddenly, for some reason if your attention were somewhere else and you suddenly look at the instrumentation and see that you're two miles beyond where you should be, how difficult would it have been to change the course of this vessel at this point?

F. EUGENE GUEST: It depends upon your speed of advance and how much ready you apply and so forth, but this ship should probably turn fairly quickly I'd imagine.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How quickly?

MR. GUEST: Well, we can talk about advance. I don't have the particulars in front of me, but I imagine a ship of a hundred and fifty/two hundred thousand tons displacement would probably have an advance, that is, from the time you had this ship on one course and changed 90 degrees to that course, it probably would be about five or six ship lengths maximum.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And in minutes that would take --

MR. GUEST: And in minutes -- again it depends upon your speed, but it wouldn't be very long, it would probably be about three or four minutes to turn the ship 90 degrees.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's amazing to turn such a vessel.

MR. GUEST: Yes, they turn fairly quickly. In fact, that's the easiest way to get out of danger is to turn the ship rather than try to stop it, because a ship of this size trying to stop it may take ten, fifteen, eighteen, twenty minutes to stop it.

MR. MacNeil: Some idea of maneuvering these big ships. For more, we turn now to Captain Gary Roberts, Senior Marine Superintendent of Chevron Shipping Company. He's in charge of safety inspections for Chevron's fleet of 42 tankers. Mr. Roberts also spent 10 years at sea for Chevron where he navigated Prince William Sound in various posts, from third mate through captain. He joins us from the studio in San Francisco. Frank Flyntz is Assistant Chief of Merchant Vessel Personnel, which is the licensing division for the United States Coast Guard. He joins us from our studio in Washington. Captain Roberts, how difficult is it to bring a super tanker into and out of Valdez?

CAPT. GARY ROBERTS, Chevron: Well, sir, Valdez relative to other ports around the world is not considered to be a particularly treacherous or dangerous port, because there is a lot of sea room. There is a lot of depth of water underneath the ship, especially where the traffic lanes have been established, but I must also say that in any port and in any navigational situation on a ship, it is very important that the bridge organization and the discipline and the cooperation and the communication among the people on the bridge of the ship are at their optimum so that the safe navigation of the vessel can be ensured.

MR. MacNeil: So in other words, routine safety and proper handling of the ship would be more important than exceptional skill coming into Valdez, is that right?

CAPT. ROBERTS: Well, exactly. I think that's a very accurate statement. I think that good practices, good established discipline, good procedures, good, prudent seamanship is the most important thing, that the human element, and the training, the experience and the discipline of the human element and the team work on the bridge is by far the most important aspect to any ship board operation.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Flyntz, what qualifies an operator to be in charge of a ship of the size of these super tankers in waterways like the entrance to Valdez?

FRANK FLYNTZ, U.S. Coast Guard: Well, a master of that size ship has to have an unlimited master's license. Generally, to get there for most ship's officers, they would have started in the business from one of the maritime academies which would mean that they would start as a third mate with four years of background and a degree that's associated with navigation and then in one year intervals they would move to second mate, chief mate and then master. That's for our licensing procedure. Each one of those four licenses are quite an event in a mariner's career. They take three to four days to complete. The individual also could start as a seaman as a ship and spend a total of three years and then start as the third officer and work up.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's go back to third mate for a moment. Exxon says that a third mate, uncertified for this kind of ship handling, was in charge of the ship when it went in. Now what kind of qualification would a third mate have?

MR. FLYNTZ: Well, I was about to finish off the master by saying in these particular waters he would also have to have a pilot's endorsement, which would mean that he has demonstrated particular familiarity with the local waters by having made a certain number of trips over the waters and having passed another difficult test in local knowledge. Now the third mate did not have this endorsement on his license.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Capt. Roberts, with all the instrumentation that a modern super tanker carries, navigational equipment that it carries, how can one explain that even to avoid ice, a ship would be taken into an area with charted reefs? I know you don't know the particular cases in this, but what occurs to you when you hear something like that?

CAPT. ROBERTS: I hate to, I hesitate to speculate, because all of the facts are certainly not in and the investigation is ongoing bothwithin Exxon and within the U.S. Coast Guard, but when an accident occurs like this, one of two things or a combination of the two comes to mind and that is a serious mechanical failure and/or a human error, a human error in navigation of some nature.

MR. MacNeil: What kind of navigational aids would -- even if a third mate found himself in charge and he didn't have the particular pilot certification to go in, he has a great many navigational aids to go on, does he not, to show where he is relative to hazards?

CAPT. ROBERTS: Oh, absolutely, yes, sir. He has excellent training in the use and the operations of -- well, I presume he has excellent training in the operation of the equipment on board and the U.S. Coast Guard has many requirements for certain equipment that must be on board and I can assure you it is on board the tankers at Valdez, including radar, and various other ways for both electronic navigation and also visual navigation. In this particular area, as I mentioned before, there is a lot of sea room and also there is a lot of excellent head lands, islands, aids to navigation throughout the entire Prince William Sound area where the third mate or anyone navigating a vessel in that area can easily use to fix the position of their vessel.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go to the other aspect that's come up today, Mr. Flyntz, on this. It is widely reported now that the captain of this ship, Hazelwood, had several drunk driving convictions and even motor license suspensions, and the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating. What is Coast Guard policy, first of all, on knowing about an officer's behavior ashore, for instance, drunk driving convictions in his driving? Does that have any relevance to Coast Guard qualification?

CAPT. ROBERTS: Well, it could have. We routinely do a background check for original seaman's documents and another background check or a concurrent background check for a license applicant, and that would show up any convictions that a person might have. However, from the time of the original license, we don't have the jurisdiction then to go out and search the national files on DWIs and proceed against the license.

MR. MacNeil: So, in other words, once an officer has his first qualification, he isn't tested or investigated for alcohol problems?

CAPT. ROBERTS: That's not entirely true. We have a rule making that was made in 1987, which is the intoxicated rule, which prohibits individuals from being intoxicated on a ship and it sets standards for blood alcohol content, and we also have a rule making that's not currently implemented which will be implemented by 1990, I believe, it's in stages, but it will start being implemented shortly, which requires periodic testing, pre- employment testing, random testing, and post casualty testing of individuals for both alcohol and narcotics.

MR. MacNeil: At the moment, it's only for narcotics, is that correct?

CAPT. ROBERTS: Well, at the moment, that isn't totally implemented. It is only for narcotics except for the post casualty.

MR. MacNeil: Capt. Roberts, how in your view does the shipping industry deal with alcohol at the moment?

CAPT. ROBERTS: Well, sir, I can say that the Chevron Corporation and Chevron Shipping Company take the subject of alcohol abuse very very seriously and we have very great concern about alcohol abuse. Within Chevron Shipping Company, while we do not prohibit alcohol on board the ships and we do not prohibit people who are off duty or who are off watch from taking a drink on the ship, we certainly do prohibit the abuse of alcohol on board the ship, whether a person is on duty or off duty because every moment of a day that a person is on one of our ships, he has to be able to respond to an emergency, and Chevron feels very serious about this. And the abuse of alcohol and people on board our ships under the influence of alcohol cannot be tolerated.

MR. MacNeil: But does alcohol have the status of seriousness that other, that drugs have at the moment in the shipping industry?

CAPT. ROBERTS: I personally look at both of those items as very very serious. Now as far as the Chevron Shipping Company even possession of narcotics is a terminating offense. I mean, that is absolutely not tolerated on board our ships and if anyone is found in possession, they are immediately terminated from the company. Alcohol may be allowed on board the ship, but the abuse of it or the fact that a person is under the influence of alcohol is not tolerated on board and if found to be an abuser or under the influence, a person is immediately terminated from the ship.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Flyntz, what do you know about the results of the tests that were done on the crew and particularly the captain of the Exxon Valdez?

MR. FLYNTZ: I know nothing of the results of the test. I know they were tested. What I would like to add on our rule making while operating on commercial vessels, the standard for commercial vessels is .04 which is a very low alcohol tolerance standard.

MR. MacNeil: Is that lower than it is to drive a motor vehicle?

MR. FLYNTZ: Yes, it is. Most states it is .1, so it's less than half.

MR. MacNeil: I see. We were told that the crew were tested some considerable time after the accident, more than 10 hours after the accident. Is that correct and is that likely in this case to yield a valid finding?

MR. FLYNTZ: I'm sorry, I can't answer that question.

MR. MacNeil: I see. You don't know when exactly they were tested.

MR. FLYNTZ: I don't precisely when they were tested.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Well, I'd like to thank you very much, Mr. Flyntz and Capt. Roberts in San Francisco for joining us this evening. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the Newshour, an update from Afghanistan and the debate over the mommy track. UPDATE - REBEL ROAD

MS. WOODRUFF: Next, an update on the Afghanistan story now that Soviet troops are out of the country. The Mujahadeen guerrillas who drove the Soviets out are now trying to oust the Communist Government that Moscow imposed on that country in the late 1970s, but that has proven harder than expected and a critical battle for control centers around the town of Jalalabad. The guerrillas want to make that town the seat of an interim government, but the Communist Government in the capital City of Kabul says the guerrilla offensive is collapsing. Today Afghan President Najibulah made a dramatic offer to the guerrillas, saying they could keep control of areas they have already captured in exchange for peace. Special Correspondent Edward Girardet, who has reported for us since the war began nearly a decade ago, traveled with some of the guerrilla groups now involved in the fight for Jalalabad. His journey took him from the Pakistan border through rebel territory in Kunar Province. Here is his report.

EDWARD GIRARDET: This is the Nawa Pass on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani soldiers now openly acknowledge the movement of guerrilla fighters into the Eastern Afghan Province of Kunar. Following the departure of the Soviets and the withdrawal of Afghan Communist forces to the cities, cross border travel hasbecome less clandestine. The Mujahadeen, as Afghan guerrillas are known, now control the whole of Kunar. Most of the valley's original 200,000 inhabitants have either fled or been killed. Both the Mujahadeen and those civilians who have returned travel freely despite the poor roads, badly cratered by years of bombardment. Only months early, Afghan troops and military convoys of the Soviet occupation held the highway and checkpoints now manned by the guerrillas along the Kunar River. It flows South to the plains of Jalalabad, still held by government forces. For the Afghan resistance, the taking back of the Kunar Province last October was of great symbolic importance. Not only was this the first region to rise up against the Communist Regime back in 1978, it was the first to take the full weight of a Red Army offensive shortly after the invasion. Now after more than a decade of conflict, the Kunaris are celebrating the departure of the Soviets and despite the devastation of their homeland, the prospects of a new beginning. Muja head forces now hold the provincial capital of Chagasari. Since forcing out the Kabul regime after years of siege from the nearby mountain positions, local guerrillas seem firmly in command. While the bulk of Kunar's civilian population has yet to come back, life is returning to normal. This improvised gas station sells fuel trucked in from Pakistan. For much of the war, the Mujahadeen were an undisciplined guerrilla force. Since taking such towns, they have adopted a more conventional demeanor. Military police ensure law and order. Never far behind the guerrillas, merchants have set up in the town bazaar. Shopkeepers collaborating with the regime have fled and been replaced by Afghans sympathetic to the resistance. Basic necessities are once again readily available. Even a taxi service now operates to carry passengers to Pakistan but also fighters to the front at the bottom of the valley. The seven party resistance alliance has set up its own local administration. Their main regional council or shirra is composed of guerrilla commanders and tribal elders. It has appointed a governor and foreign ministries responsible for defense, communications, religious affairs and other matters. Meeting every morning in a former regime office with a governor, council members discuss the business at hand. But this is not the only shirra. A rival administration funded by Arab religious extremists has been established in another part of town. As Westerners, we were not allowed in to film. The guerrillas claim to have established some 60 schools in the valley, but there are still few pupils. Chagasari's only high school once jammed with hundreds of students has recently reopened with only 20 boys. As with much of Chagasari, it was badly ransacked. An Afghan teacher is now forced to hold his kiramic class outside. But the looting has not stopped. This Muja head from the rival Arab shirra was in the process of removing yet another bench. When questioned, the teacher told us that although this was a common occurrence, they hoped to re-equip the schools once the refugees returned. The guerrillas have set up their own clinics, some of them funded by Western or Arab aid groups. For the moment, however, the patients are mostly elderly men and Mujahadeen. The biggest challenge for the resistance, however, is re-establishing basic services such as electricity, roads, and drinking water. The alliance has already made certain attempts at imposing its authority, among them the posting of price controls in the bazaar to counter profiteering. As local Afghans explained, a functioning administration is vital for the country's recovery. Just across the bridge from Chagasari lies Koralla, a once thriving town of 5000. Now virtually deserted, it has become one of the most poignant symbols of the Afghan War, for on April 20, 1979, the Soviet- backed regime conducted a massacre that soon came to characterize its repression of popular resistance. In an event that occurred at this site nearly 10 years ago before the Red Army invasion of Afghanistan, government forces in the presence of soviet advisers came to the small town of Koralla. Accusing the local population of supporting the Mujahadeen, they ordered all the men folk for a meeting down by the river. Then in an act of calculated brutality, they machine gunned over 1000 men and boys. The victims, some of them still alive, were then bulldozed in these common graves that lie behind me. Today, Afghan Mujahadeen pray at Koralla. Mustafa, a local farmer, is one of the few male survivors. He managed to hide in a nearby field when the Communists came. Vowing to fight until the Kabul regime is overthrown, he takes us through the crumbling houses of his dead friends and neighbors. The women and children of Koralla live in Pakistan, where they fled within days of the killing, and still talk about what happened to their husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers and sons, but there have been many Korallas in Afghanistan as the Mujahadeen, many of whom have lost family members, know only too well. Further down the valley, where resistance groups have taken over former government force, the Mujahadeen has stopped the captured booty. With the guerrillas preparing to move on the cities, they have been preparing the equipment left behind. Some vehicles are in working order. Others will be cannibalized for spare parts. The rest will eventually be sold for scrap. We also came across prisoners of war, in this case a somewhat nervous Afghan Army major. He was captured with nearly 50 men when the Mujahadeen overran their post on the outskirts of Jalalabad. The city's still controlled by the regime. All of them profess to be avid Muslims and supporters of the Mujahadeen, an understandable reaction given that army officers without resistance credentials are normally executed. But here the major insists he has always sympathized with the guerrillas. Closer to the front, we spoke to local commander Gulam Safi. He explained to us that the Kunar Mujahadeen are united in their jehad or holy war against the regime. This was born out as the senior Muja head commander escorting us to the front was warmly greeted by fellow fighters from half a dozen different groups. Operations from government forces less than a mile away they said were done in close coordination with each other. A continuing problem that threatens to cause bitter divisions throughout the country is the increased presence of Arab Islamic militants. Over the past two years, several thousand Muslim zealots, such as these we encountered last August in nearby Paktia province, have been coming to fight the jehad. Screaming, death to America, death to the Soviets, and death to Israel, they're determined to impose a purist and intolerant from of Islam among the Afghans. But their efforts to buy guerrilla loyalty with money and weapons have angered many furiously independent Mujahadeen. While covering action at the front six miles from Jalalabad, we were blocked by a group of armed Arab fundamentalists who prevented us from filming as government shells exploded around us. At the same time on the other side of the ridge, two British colleagues of ours were filming with the Mujahadeen less than a mile away where they too came under attack from government forces. With the Soviets gone, the Mujahadeen are tightening their noose around the government held cities such as Jalalabad. They have been stepping up their operations to break through the security belts left behind by the Soviets, but now garrisons fight Afghan government troops and the militiamen. Meanwhile, the flight of refugees to Pakistan goes on. During the first two months of this year alone, over 20,000 men, women and children have reportedly abandoned the Jalalabad region, and with the prospects of more fighting and hardship ahead, inhabitants continue to flee. FOCUS - THE MOMMY TRACK

MR. MacNeil: Next, we focus on women, work, children and a controversial proposal called the mommy track. Charlayne Hunter- Gault has more. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The furor over the mommy track started just a few weeks ago when this article in the Harvard Business Review became the subject of heated debate. An established and respected feminist, Felice Schwartz, called on business to allow special arrangements and shorter hours for working women with children. The proposal became known as the mommy track and it came under fire from women's group who castigated Schwartz's idea as a throwback to the stone age. In a moment, we'll debate the issue with Felice Schwartz and a critic, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, but first, a look at the different experiences of three working women at one company in this report by Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: In San Francisco's bay area, the largest employer is Pacific Telesis, the parent company of Pacific Bell. Elisa Kinder has worked for the company for 17 years. In order to reach her position as Executive Director for Office Technology, Kinder felt she had to make an important decision.

MS. KINDER: When I first joined the company, I think I had been working for about four years, I was married and the decision, when the question came up did I want to continue in my career or did I want to have children, with my schedule and my interest in getting ahead, I couldn't see myself devoting time to both.

MR. HOLMAN: Like most women who hold executive positions at major corporation, Kinder decided not to have children.

ELISA KINDER: I've moved six times in the last twelve years and part of that time I didn't move and I was actually commuting for 28 months from Southern California to Northern California on Mondays and Fridays. Imagine having a child and only being able to see that child on the weekends. I think that would be a horrible experience from the child's viewpoint as well as from a parent. I don't think that would have worked at all if I had had children. In fact, some of my friends did have children and couldn't take a job because of the relocation involved.

MR. HOLMAN: Rhonda Hughes, a product analyst at Pacific Bell, made a different decision. She had a baby. Although she planned to return to work full-time after her maternity leave, she changed her mind.

RHONDA HUGHES: Considering how committed I felt to my job, it was difficult to imagine that something could intervene and change that to the extent that she did. I sort of underestimated the amount to which I was going to fall in love with my baby. I just found it really difficult to face not seeing her for that big a part of, you know, her life basically.

MR. HOLMAN: So Rhonda Hughes arranged to go into the office three days a week and spend the rest of her time with her two yearold daughter. Hughes says she eventually will return to full-time work.

RHONDA HUGHES: I feel like I could step back into the track, that I don't feel like there will be any long-term repercussions. I think my advancement has been postponed, but I don't really feel like it's been changed. My ultimate potential I don't think hasn't changed in the company.

MR. HOLMAN: Although no official options for part-time work exist at Pacific Telesis, managers are given discretion to create alternatives with their workers on a case by case basis.

MR. HOLMAN: After her first child was born in 1982, Linda Chinn also was able to change her job at Pacific Telesis to part- time, but after eight months, she returned to work full- time, fearing her part-time schedule would hurt her advancement.

LINDA CHINN: I viewed my career as on "hold" during the time. I would not have expected a promotion during that time when I was on part-time. I think that's unfair. I would have thought that was unfair because at the level of management where I was at that time, the next step up really requires a significant amount of increased commitment to the corporation.

MR. HOLMAN: Chinn's own high job performance standards made dividing her time between work and home exhausting.

LINDA CHINN: I quite frankly felt that part-time was more stressful than full-time work for me personally because when I was at part-time work, I felt that I should still be able to cook and can and do all these activities in the house and because it was an experimental arrangement with the corporation, I wanted to make sure that I did an absolute superb job on a part-time basis, so that I felt an increased pressure to make sure that there would be no areas that I could be penalized for because I was part-time.

MR. HOLMAN: When Chinn returned to full-time work, she put in 80 hour weeks to prove her commitment. The rigorous schedule paid off. She is now Executive Director of Finance.

LINDA CHINN: For me personally, moving from part-time to full- time, I felt that there was an observation period that was testing, it was my perception, testing my commitment to the corporation.

MR. HOLMAN: Hughes and Chinn say they're glad they had the opportunity to step off the fast track temporarily, but they say that choice wasn't easy to make or to stick with; combining motherhood and management is difficult.

LINDA CHINN: I've compromised a number of things. One of them is dish washing, the other is ironing, the other is house cleaning. I do make certain compromises, but I feel if women are clear on their goals and they are clear on why they want those goals, why have they settled on particular goals and the risks and the benefits from those goals, it will help them set priorities and help them make those decisions and they will not be viewed as compromises.

RHONDA HUGHES: It's incredibly stressful. I think the job that I had before I had a baby was a difficult job and being a mom is an extremely difficult job and trying to do both of those things and do them well is hard. I think trying to do either of them and doing it well is hard and I think trying to do both of them is also hard. I think all the choices are hard.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In proposing the controversial two track system, Felice Schwartz said her goal was to make things easier for corporate women and corporations. Twenty-seven years ago, Schwartz founded Catalyst, a non-profit research group that advises women about business and work. I interviewed her in New York last week along with Congresswoman Schroeder, Democrat of Colorado. She's the prime sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which would offer unpaid leave for families in the event of birth, adoption or family illness. She is also the author of a new book "Champion of the Great American Family". You just heard the women on the tape piece talking about their experience in this matter of the so-called "mommy track". Most of them didn't seem to feel that companies should have an official policy that deals differently with women and children. Why do you think they should?

FELICE SCHWARTZ, Researcher On Women And Work: Because women are still bearing the primary responsibility for child rearing and companies, corporate leaders, are ready now to respond to the needs of women. They're ready because of the demographic realities that there is going to be a shortage of able, competent people and they're going to need women. They're ready because women are ready. They've trained themselves through business school and law school and accounting school, and they're ready because they know that they're investing 10 years of training and experience in a woman before she usually has a child. Women are having children now in their late 20s or early 30s. So the time is ripe now for a practical nuts and bolts organization like Catalyst that has access and credibility in the corporate community to go in and say it's time to respond to the needs of women. Women are different, because unless we do that, then if we are afraid of doing that, if we are saying, women are just like men, then there are going to be the same rules for women as men and a woman who does want to spend some time with her newborn baby in the early periods is going to be forced to play by men's rules and she's not going to be able to make it. She'll be forced to give up her career rather than to return after that period to whatever track she wants.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In today's New York Times op ed page, you said in an article that your position on this was widely misunderstood. What specifically are you advocating in terms of changing policies for women?

MS. SCHWARTZ: I'm advocating flexibility on the part of corporations to offer women flexible options throughout their lives because women are along a whole spectrum. They place themselves from family focus to career focus, then they shift during their lifetimes. I want them to have the options that they want and the other thing I want from companies is I want them to look at the environment in management which is still counter productive for women. The attitudes of males there, their largely unconscious behaviors make it difficult for women. There are many things in the corporate environment that impede women's productivity. And the thing is the cost today to employers of failing to respond to the needs of women and of failing to change that environment are great and they know it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So are you, in fact, advocating a two track policy, one for women and one that is different from men?

MS. SCHWARTZ: No. I'm advocating many career paths for women initially and they'll be a model because they'll be cost effective for men in the future.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Congresswoman Schroeder, you have some problems with all of this. What are they?

REP. PAT SCHROEDER, [D] Colorado: Well, most children that I know got here with both a mom and a dad and most of the corporation surveys that I've seen are showing that dads want time with children too and I think what we need is, yes, flexibility, but flexibility for families and for all the family responsibilities we have. We all have dependent parents. We have lots of different family responsibilities and all the rest of the Western world has done this. Every country that's knocking our socks off in trade has moved on this 40 years ago. I feel that by targeting it all on to women and just saying, well, the primary care giver must be women, No. 1, we're denying our history. For 200 years in this country, it was part of our language. We've talked about ma and pa farm, ma and pa business, ma and pa ranch. The mom and the dad were both an economic unit and a family unit. And what really happened is we keep wanting to define the world in terms of the 1950s when women went to the suburbs and men went to work and we haven't gotten it all back together again. And I think it's very important that we get back together again and that we don't -- I mean, we're not trains; we're human beings. We don't need tracks. We need to all figure out what types we are, whether we're type As or whether we're more laid back and what our own goals are and how fast we want to move or don't want to move and I think that's important.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you don't buy the argument Ms. Schwartz just made that women are different and, therefore, you need different policies?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, I buy the fact that women are different. Obviously, biologically we are different. But I must say if you go on that premise, let me look for arguments. Let's say that if you looked at men in the period from 45 to 55, unfortunately, men miss many more days of work than women because of the high stress diseases that they're subjected to, whether it's cancer or whether it's heart attacks. And so if I said, look, we shouldn't invest in men because the time they finally get to the top you're paying them the most money, they're most apt to get sick -- I mean, people say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Anybody that you look at in our work place has got different periods of their time when they may or may not be sick, when they may or may not have family responsibilities, and what we want is corporations to look at each of us as individuals, rather than just stereotyping all the family stuff on women and men are back out there -- the bottom line is I think the message for so long in this country was you can either be a good business person or you could be a good family member and you can't do both, and that's what I hear from the family track stuff.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this what it is, we're stereotyping and targeting and targeting the wrong --

MS. SCHWARTZ: No. I'm moving towards getting it altogether as Pat says. I'm moving towards the sharing of men and women in family life, raising children together. But I'm practical and Catalyst is practical. The first step is the step we're ready for now. Make it possible for women, because they are bearing the primary responsibility and there is an awareness of the business need to respond to women.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You don't agree with that, Congresswoman Schroeder?

REP. SCHROEDER: No. I mean what business hears in all this debate is they look at the very first sentences of your argument which says you have a study that shows that women cost corporations more and they instantly, many of them, grab onto that, and say, then therefore we don't have to pay them as much since they obviously cost us more and they're more trouble.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Let me get her to respond to that.

REP. SCHROEDER: Yes. I mean, I think that that's very troubling.

MS. SCHWARTZ: Ten years ago when we were in the midst of the baby boom, abundant talent, I think corporate leaders would say, yes, that's a good excuse for keeping women down or getting them to go home again. Today CEO after CEO tells me that it's not a question of whether to respond but how to respond. They're looking for ways today to help the best and brightest men and women move up, so - -

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You don't buy that, Ms. Schroeder?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, I mean, I hope that's true, but I sit in the Congress where we listen to testimony from all over America of people who have not found that to be true. Let me talk about family medical leave. Family medical leave, we're trying to include both men and women, the rumor on the Hill today is that the Bush administration has said they will only sign the bill if we take men out. That troubles all of us. Sen. Kennedy has made a very moving plea that when his young son lost his leg, he took family medical leave to be with that child and he should have. And we have found men who went through the same thing and lost their job because they did that. Now we're saying what happens is you take this article and you mail that to the administration saying well, we used to be for parental leave, but now we want it to be maternity leave, then employers say if the federal government's just looking at women, we're not going to hire as many women because they'll cost us more. We're going backwards.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Schwartz.

MS. SCHWARTZ: If I go into a corporate leader and I start talking about men, he'll turn his hearing aid off.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

MS. SCHWARTZ: Because he's focused now, because he has an expectation for men and that's where he is in relation to men. He's now -- if I come in with all the credibility and access I have and I talk about women, women are on his mind. He knows that he's losing women, he knows women are plateauing. He knows that women are overwhelmed by the fact that at this point in time they have the primary responsibility for child rearing. I'm also talking to them about the fact that the most significant cost effective thing they can do to release women's productivity is to legitimize and facilitate the roles that men want increasingly to take in family life and they will do that.

REP. SCHROEDER: I hope you're right. The profiles I've seen of corporate America show that those CEOs are the last Norman Rockwell families left and they're the few guys left in America that have a wife in the traditional sense and if I had that kind of wife, I may not want to give it up. They don't really get what's going on.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about Ms. Schwartz's point though that the demographics are changing and that women, that they're investing 10 years of training in these women before they ever have babies, so that in and of itself is going to propel them back into the track once they step out for a minute?

REP. SCHROEDER: But look at the statistics. Statistics are cruel and they still show that with all the demographics changing, with more and more women moving into the work place, it hadn't worked, because a women with a college degree still makes less than a man who dropped out of the same job.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's a practical reality, isn't it?

REP. SCHROEDER: Now that's a practical reality so to say that, ah, well, this is going to be better, no. We have constantly found reasons in this society to pay women less. We haven't got pay equity. We haven't got any of these things and I think to say that just the demographics, no.

MS. SCHWARTZ: It is going to be better. It's already becoming better. There are companies that are doing exemplary things to identify women with ability and make sure they get the experience they need and to move them up, to bring the pay of women up to that of men, because they need women. Women have half the talent in the country and we're moving into an era when companies are going to be competing intensely for talented, able individuals.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Schroeder, what about the woman in the piece who stepped out for a few minutes and then got back on the track? You don't think that that's a possibility in this cycle?

REP. SCHROEDER: Hey, I did it too. I mean, I had two children and by the time the youngest was two I was back in Congress going at it, been there ever since. That's possible to do. But if you hedge it on statistics which this article has hedged on, and no one has shown us those studies, I mean, I think you ought to show the studies and I think you ought to let us see them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have the studies to show?

MS. SCHWARTZ: I have 27 years of Catalyst research to show, research on parental leave, on relocation, on benefits, on women's experience in the corporation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Would you share them with the Congresswoman?

MS. SCHWARTZ: We have provided our research for years to Congresswoman Schroeder to back her efforts in legislation.

REP. SCHROEDER: That's true, but --

MS. SCHWARTZ: Our research is in the public domain.

REP. SCHROEDER: But it has not shown that women cost more than men. All the research I've seen has not shown that at all and if you say women cost more than men, then employers instantly glob on to that to say it's a competitive world, we're going to have to pay them less, and that's what's so troubling about the article.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. You can see that we have not resolved this issue in this debate. Let me just ask you both very quickly in summing up, listening to this debate, women in the audience, what advice would you give to them trying to make up their minds about what to do? Congresswoman Schroeder.

REP. SCHROEDER: I think it's very troubling. Women tell me constantly the one thing they're afraid to talk to their employer about is their family problems for fear he won't think that they're as attached to the job and therefore, they feel they have to suppress them and we're not giving the kind of support we need to in this society and they only increase the stress, so I think we have to find ways to make it okay for employers to listen to both men and women on these issues. It's not just the woman's problem, it's a society problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Schwartz.

MS. SCHWARTZ: I would encourage women and men to talk frankly with their employers, particularly if they're able and hard working, if they're making a contribution, because the employer needs to be responsive to them, and I would urge employers to look at the research we're doing. We're doing the first benchmark study of where women are in the corporation. We're studying the experience of three companies currently with maternity and what can they do to make it more manageable for women, and we're looking in a national study at the various ways in which alternative work patterns can be provided to women and to men.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you, Ms. Schwartz, for sharing that with us, and thank you, Congresswoman Schroeder, for your insight. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, the main points in the news, President Bush sent top federal officials to Alaska to evaluate progress in cleaning up the nation's worst oil spill, the captain of the super tanker which aground was reported to have a drinking problem, the Air Force grounded its fleet of strategic B1-B bombers because of faults in fuel tanks. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.