Managers Labor Relations

There was a new development Saturday in the bizarre tale of the NBA general manager who won't stay away. Bob Whitsitt's office is now almost bare. The Seattle SuperSonics said they have taken out all the "business equipment." When Whitsitt, the NBA executive of the year, reported to work Friday, he found his desk and chair. And that was it. The club removed Whitsitt's telephone, computer, fax and VCR. "We asked Bob to take a paid leave of absence," Bill Ackerley said Saturday in a statement.

There was a new development Saturday in the bizarre tale of the NBA general manager who won't stay away. Bob Whitsitt's office is now almost bare. The Seattle SuperSonics said they have taken out all the "business equipment." When Whitsitt, the NBA executive of the year, reported to work Friday, he found his desk and chair. And that was it. The club removed Whitsitt's telephone, computer, fax and VCR. "We asked Bob to take a paid leave of absence," Bill Ackerley said Saturday in a statement.

More than 10,000 men in green combat fatigues mounted a recent pre-dawn raid on a shipyard in the southeastern port city of Ulsan, attacking the facility by land, air and sea. The blitzkrieg ended within 40 minutes. As the shipyard filled with smoke, it was evident that the enemy had vanished. It sounds like a scene from a Korean War film or maybe a drill from the "Team Spirit" exercises, which the U.S. military conducts with South Korean troops every spring. But this maneuver was for real--one of the latest episodes in South Korea's increasingly bellicose labor relations.