The De-Greening of Wall Street

Since the stock-market crash of early 1970, the biggest noise in the brokerage community has been the sound of the falling ax. On Wall Street, some 35% of the work force has been let go since the market turned bearish. Simply through attrition, Shearson, Hammill & Co. reduced its rolls from 3,300 last spring to 2,800 today. A few firms sliced away a little muscle along with much fat. Some firms fired so many clerks that when trading volume picked up in November, the staff could not process orders on time.

In this holiday season, the brokers' fabled bonuses were merely a remembrance of things past. Scarcely 10% of the houses paid any bonuses. On the other hand, Salomon Brothers & Hutz-ler, the big bond-trading house that manages to prosper during the lean years and the fat, paid its employees bonuses of two weeks' to three months' salary.

Beyond bonuses, one of the most fertile areas for chopping is the expense account. "Our business certainly is not what it was before," laments Mario Tucci, owner of Delmonico Restaurant, one of the most expensive watering spots in the Wall Street area. The $75-a-day suites for visiting customers that brokerage houses have maintained in hotels along Central Park South have been dropped.

Through skillful surgery without major bloodletting, one of the nation's biggest brokerage firms has lowered its overhead by at least $110,000 a month. Many cost-cutting tricks resulted from an employee-suggestion contest that paid $700 in prizes, and similar controls have become the standard for many Wall Street firms. Among the specific cost reductions:

> A clerk was assigned to monitor office copying machines and discourage employees from duplicating their personal letters or their children's homework. Savings: $6,000 a month.

> The number of quote machines --those electronic desktop gadgets that flash stock prices--was cut in half at the firm's branch offices: $18,000 saved.

> Dormant accounts were pruned from the mailing list: $10,000 saved.

> Consultants were dropped, and employees' overtime was limited: $48,000 saved.

> Brochures and reports were run off on the company's own offset press rather than sent out for printing: $4,000 saved.

> Subscriptions to expensive intelligence services were pared: $5,000 saved.

> Long-distance phone calls were discouraged: $6,000 saved. >The executive dining room was closed; officers were told to pay their own club dues and forbidden to take co-workers to lunch at company expense: $13,000 saved.

Many brokerage firms plan to continue their parsimony. "Any controls that we have installed," says Shields & Co. Vice President Dan Sheehy, "will not lapse when business improves." Adds Senior Vice President Myron Wick of Dominick & Dominick: "You're looking at a permanent change in Wall Street life-styles." Like the Great Crash of 1929, which resulted in a whole portfolio of stock-market reforms, Wall Street's latest decline is likely to leave a lasting impression.

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