BRIEFCASE FILM DIRECTOR SUES OVER HIS PORTFOLIO.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

The director of ``Pearl Harbor'' and ``Armageddon'' sued his former stockbroker for securities fraud Tuesday, alleging that the filmmaker's $2.8 million portfolio was mishandled.

Michael Bay alleges that 28-year-old Win H. Troung, who worked for Merrill Lynch in Beverly Hills, ``engaged in extraordinarily reckless trading'' and covered up ``significant'' losses by sending the plaintiff fraudulent summaries.

The 37-year-old motion picture director seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for Troung's alleged securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duties and negligence. Troung could not be located for comment on the allegations.

Wescom opening Simi Valley branch

SIMI VALLEY - Wescom Credit Union will host the grand opening today of its Simi Valley branch, 2691 Tapo Canyon Road.

Membership is open to anyone who lives, works, worships or goes to school in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

Settlement likely in PacBell case

OAKLAND - Pacific Bell likely will pay $35 million to settle a suit brought by 1,500 engineers who said they weren't paid for working an average of 10 hours of overtime a week.

The settlement is tentative, and the company would not comment until it is approved by the court. Pacific Bell admitted no wrongdoing in the proposed settlement, reached Monday.

The engineers filed suit in 1997, saying they worked 50 hours a week, but were only paid for working 40. They earn up to $60,000 per year and could be paid at least $107 for every week they worked since June 1993, according to Mark R. Thierman, a lawyer representing the engineers.

American unions see ranks decline

LAS VEGAS - The survival of labor unions in America hinges on the ability of leaders to reverse years of declining membership, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared Tuesday.

``I must stand before you this morning and say in all honesty, the American labor movement is failing to help new members organize at anywhere the level we need to,'' Sweeney told some 1,000 union members at the federation's convention.

``And this failure must be addressed by those of us in this hall,'' he said, ``or the future of this federation is at stake.''

The AFL-CIO claims a slight membership increase of about 100,000 this year - to 13.2 million. But that total is roughly the same as when the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations joined in 1955.

Since then, the U.S. work force has almost doubled and union membership nationally has declined from 35 percent to 13.5 percent last year.

Enron appearing to have a future

HOUSTON - The embattled energy trader Enron Corp. could emerge from one of the biggest Chapter 11 reorganizations ever with a second life as a smaller trader with different management and a supporting bank as a partner, said John Olsen, director of research at Houston securities firm Sanders Morris Harris.

Enron shares surged Tuesday as investors took heart in news that Enron had secured $1.5 billion in short-term financing after seeking bankruptcy protection.

While shares jumped 47 cents, or 118 percent, they were still trading at just 87 cents Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. A year ago, they were worth more than $80.

New e-mail virus warning issued

Symantec Corp., the Internet security specialist, warned Tuesday of a new mass-mailing computer worm called W32.Goner.Amm.

According to Cupertino-based Symantec, the worm spreads itself through e-mail by accessing the Microsoft Outlook address book and the ICQ network messaging system.

W32.Goner.Amm also attempts to delete critical files associated with anti-virus and personal fire-wall programs, according to Symantec.

If a Microsoft Internet Relay Chat program is installed on an infected computer, the worm can also insert mIRC scripts that will create a back door, Symantec warned. This will allow the infected computer to be used in a denial-of-service attack.

``At this time we are not seeing the high level of infected file submissions that we received with some of the more widespread viruses, such as VBS.LoveLetter and CodeRed,'' said Vincent Weafer, senior director of Symantec Security Response.

The subject line reads ``Hi.'' The text in the body of the e-mail reads, ``How are you? When I saw this screen saver, I immediately thought about you. I am in a hurry. I promise you will love it!''