BRIEFCASE HOSPITAL WORKERS VOTE NO ON UNION.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

MISSION HILLS - Service and maintenance employees at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center voted 200 to 113 against representation by the Service Employees International Union.

More than 90 percent of the 360 service and maintenance employees at the Mission Hills-based hospital voted in the election held last week.

The votes were counted Monday by the National Labor Relations Board.

OCP committee views alternatives

WOODLAND HILLS - Optical Communication Products Inc. announced Monday that a special committee of its board of directors is evaluating ``strategic alternatives'' to enhance shareholder value and liquidity.

The committee, comprised of the company's three independent directors, retained Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. to help ``evaluate strategic alternatives, including a special dividend, share repurchases, strategic merger or sale of the company,'' according to a company statement.

OCP designs, manufactures and sells a line of fiber optic subsystems and modules for metropolitan, local and storage area networks.

OCP's product lines include optical transceivers, transponders, transmitters and receivers.

The company was founded in 1991 and has its headquarters in Woodland Hills. The Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., based in Tokyo, owned 58.1 percent of OCP's outstanding capital stock as of June 30.

Navy gives 9-year pact to Northrop

CENTURY CITY - The U.S. Navy on Monday awarded a nine-year, $281 million contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to develop fully integrated personnel and pay capability for all military branches of the Department of Defense.

The Defense Integrated Military Human Resource System will support more than 3 million military personnel deployed globally and ``will be the single authoritative source of personnel information on individuals and units across the DoD regardless of military service affiliation,'' according to a Northrop Grumman statement.

Northrop Grumman estimates that the DIMHRS program will create 200 new jobs, mostly in New Orleans.

DirecTV boosting full-year guidance

EL SEGUNDO - Hughes Electronics Corp. and its DirecTV Holdings LLC subsidiary announced Monday that DirecTV U.S. is increasing its full-year guidance for net subscriber additions and revenues.

DirecTV expects to add about 320,000 net new owned and operated subscribers in the third quarter, according to Hughes President and Chief Executive Officer Jack A. Shaw.

He said DirecTV U.S. is also increasing its full-year 2003 guidance for net owned and operated subscriber additions to 1.05 million, compared with the prior guidance of 900,000.

2 aerospace firms joining up on OPS 

EL SEGUNDO - Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Space Systems Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Integrated Systems sector in El Segundo announced Monday they are joining forces to develop an affordable Orbital Space Plane for NASA.

The aerospace companies said they were combining efforts to simplify and strengthen competition to build a safe, affordable complement to the space shuttle.

Lockheed Martin will lead the new team as the system prime contractor, while Northrop Grumman will serve as Lockheed Martin's principal teammate and subcontractor.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to select a prime contractor team for the full-scale OSP development by August of next year.

T-bill rates mixed in Monday auction

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities were mixed in Monday's auction.

The Treasury Department sold $16 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.935 percent, unchanged from the previous week. An additional $16 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 1.005 percent, down from 1.010 percent.

The six-month rate was the lowest since Sept. 15, when the rate was 0.995 percent.