"I'll see what I can do for you, maybe upgrade the classification--" "Thanks, Les." Back at his desk, Eddie looked at his watch. Nearly time for the Safety Meeting. Lost-time injuries had been climbing for the last four months. While waiting, he signed a sixty-three page preliminary report recommending a program for the orderly replacement of all transmission and distribution cable installed prior to 1946. It was estimated that the savings, in the long run, would total some quarter of a billion dollars. The initial expense, however, was astronomical. After the Safety Meeting, Eddie prepared another memorandum indicating the acute need for a better training program and an increase in maintenance personnel. Shortage of qualified technicians was chronic. At four twenty-five, the night supervisor phoned in to say he was having engine trouble with his new car and would be delayed until about six o'clock. Eddie agreed to wait for him. Eddie dialed home to let his wife, Lois, know he would be late again. A modulated low-frequency note told him the home phone was out of order. Ray Morely, one of the night-shift engineers, came in with coffee. "You still here, Eddie?" "Yeah, until Wheeler makes it. His car's down." "Market hit a new high." "Yeah. I guess you heard about the meeting today?" Ray sipped coffee. "Budget again? I missed the day crew. I got hung up in traffic and was a little late." "A pay cut goes with it, this time." "You're kidding?" "Been by your desk yet?" "No." "I'm not kidding. Ten per cent for those making above eight hundred." "Nobody's going to put up with that," Ray said. "We're in an engineering shortage. We've got ICBMs rusting in their silos all over the country because we can't afford the engineering maintenance--that's how bad it is. Everybody'll quit." "I don't think they'll make it stick. Ramon Lopez, one of the truck crew, was killed today hosing down a high-voltage pothead." "No kidding?" Eddie told him about the accident. "That was a rough one to lose, wasn't it?" The phone rang. Ray said, "I'll get it." He listened for a minute and hung up. "There's an outage in the Silver Lake Area. The brakes on a bus failed and took out an overhead section." Eddie sat back. "No sense in you going. With work traffic on the surface streets until the freeway gets fixed, they won't get the truck there until 6:30 or so." "Right." Ray drank coffee reflectively. "You going looking?" "I'm an old-timer. I got a lot of seniority. How about you?" "I got bills. It's going to cost me near a hundred a month--that's a steep bite." "I still think they'll back off."