Best and Worst of Times

At the two ends of the Sunbelt last week, conventions of both the New Economy and the Old Economy took place. In Anaheim, Calif., some 110,000 people paid up to $125 each to examine the wares of 650 firms at the National Computer Conference. At the same time in Dallas, nearly 2,500 delegates attended the United Auto Workers meeting that elected a new union president. TIME Correspondent Dick Thompson was in Anaheim, and Correspondent Barbara Dolan was in Dallas. Their reports:

ANAHEIM: "SURVIVING SUCCESS"

It all had the atmosphere of Walt Disney's nearby Fantasyland. In the dome-shaped main hall, robots caromed around the floor. Overhead, a single-engine plane circled, dragging a sign announcing COMPAQ IS HERE. At one booth, a man dressed up like the Red Baron demonstrated a program that enables a personal computer to accept voice commands. Apple Computer rented Disneyland for an evening to entertain 12,000 of its most intimate customers, employees and friends. For the more serious, discussions were held on topics like "Surviving Success--an Industry Dilemma."

Displays spilled out of the main arena and into six unairconditioned tents, where conventioneers sweltered when Santa Ana winds pushed the temperature well into the 90s. Yet the heat hardly suffocated the enthusiasm. Everyone, after all, was participating in America's glamour and growth industry. As Robert Lane, president of Commodore Business Machines, observed glowingly, "The consumer just has an insatiable desire for computing at the moment."

Discussions among computer makers tend to be high-tech talk tinged with evangelism. This year portable computers were gospel. As many as 40 companies have introduced portables that range in size from relatively bulky 30-pounders to lap-size models that weigh about 4 lbs.

When participants were not talking about the latest, lightest and most powerful machine, they discussed two huge competitors: IBM and the Japanese. IBM introduced its first personal computer less than two years ago, but it now appears that it may soon dominate the market. The company already commands about 25% of sales, and other makers are tailoring their new products to work like IBM's. On the subject of the Japanese, most computer company officials remain quietly confident that they can match the challenge.

Underlying the general euphoria were serious concerns about the industry's future. Sales are growing incredibly fast: from $4.7 billion last year to $7.7 billion this year and to a projected $21.6 billion by 1987. As the industry gets bigger, the risks get bigger too. No longer can someone launch a company from a garage with pocket money. A new firm like Compaq Computer, which makes a portable IBM work-alike computer, spent $30 million getting started. Carving out a piece of the market is also expensive. Advertising used to consist of just a few homemade ads in electronic hobby magazines. This year some companies will spend tens of millions of dollars on publicity.

With all that money at risk, there was some nervous talk that weaker companies will fall by the wayside. At least 150 firms worldwide now make personal computers. Said Ronald Ockander, sales director of Epson America: "You know everybody is not going to make it. There isn't room on the retailer's shelf for that many." Sharp-eyed participants noted that about 30 companies who exhibited at last year's National Computer Conference in Houston did not show up for this one. Nonetheless, a strong streak of optimism reigned. Said Digital Equipment's Edward Kramer: "It's a big damn business. There's room for a lot of guys."

The driving dream of the conference remained the hit product and a new fortune, and a model of success was never far away. Apple Chairman and co-Founder Steven Jobs, 28, who owns $403 million of company stock, walked the convention floors alone, inspiring a bit of awe.

DALLAS: "HARD TO BE OPTIMISTIC"

Balloons bobbed and a band played Solidarity Forever, but few of those at last week's United Auto Workers convention felt much like celebrating. Indeed, talk among the delegates often strayed to topics like food stamps and unemployment. More than one-third of the 1,500 U.A.W. locals could not even afford to send a representative to the session. Said Shop Chairman George Nano, who led a six-member delegation representing jobless workers from Fremont, Calif.: "The layoff of our brothers and sisters has caused dramatic and drastic financial changes. It has meant divorces and bankruptcies and the loss of homes, cars and furniture."

The union's woes mirror the depressed state of the American auto industry. Since 1980, U.A.W. membership has fallen by about 19% and now stands at 1.1 million. Some 211,000 of those remaining are on indefinite layoff and may not be returning to their old jobs. Thousands more could be displaced by automation.

Many experts claim the auto industry's decline is partly due to excessively high wages and benefits, which are about twice the average for U.S. workers in manufacturing industries. But U.A.W. members are not ready to settle for less. In fact, they are still smarting from the $4.5 billion in wage-and-benefit concessions made to the Big Three automakers since 1979, and now they are demanding to get at least some of that back. Declared a red and white button some delegates wore: RESTORE PLUS MORE IN 1984.

Anger over past givebacks simmered at the convention, and delegates were proud of the stubbornness of locals like 1610 in Akron, which had refused to give more concessions to the Rogers Manufacturing plant in January, despite evidence that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. "We've already made our sacrifices," said Hilda Hendrickson, a press operator and president of the Akron local. "We have to make a living also." Al Gardner, bargaining chairman for a Ford local in Dearborn, Mich., charged that only a 38-day Chrysler strike by Canadian auto workers last fall had managed to stop the concession movement.

The givebacks had been urged by Douglas Fraser, 66, the outgoing U.A.W. president. Fraser, who also sits on Chrysler's board of directors, had argued that concessions were needed to ensure the auto industry's survival in the face of strong foreign competition.

Many delegates questioned the selection of Owen Bieber, 53, to succeed Fraser as president. Bieber, a relative unknown, who had been director of the U.A.W. General Motors department, was nominated by the union's international executive board last November. "Bieber's an honest, hardworking, committed person," said one official. "The question is, has he got the qualities to lead the union enthusiastically? When he was in charge at General Motors, his first bargaining session ended up in concessions." Nonetheless, the convention unanimously elected the 6-ft. 5-in. Bieber.

The new chairman later won standing ovations with a fist-pounding speech in which he vowed that there would be no more givebacks. Said he: "We're proud of the gains we've made over the years, because we've earned them." After naming the chairmen of the Big Three automakers, Bieber insisted, "I am deadly serious when I say it's their turn to do some giving."

The speech clearly excited the conventiongoers, who had been longing for something to cheer about, but the mood of elation quickly faded. Said Richard Gaskill, a delegate from an International Harvester plant in Fort Wayne, Ind.: "It's pretty hard for me to be optimistic these days because they are closing my plant. I think the general feeling is that our people have taken it on the chin long enough."

Many of the delegates were middle-aged men with high seniority and secure positions. They would be among the last workers to lose their jobs if the industry shrinks further. Yet even among them, much of the fun seemed forced. Replied one delegate when a colleague asked whether he was having a good time: "Yes, but I hate to think of having to go back to work on Monday." Then he paused for a moment and added, "But then I have a job, thank God." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.