DIGEST
Walt Disney Co.'s ABC said it won't allow more than 1,000 unionized workers who walked off the job to protest its health-care policy to return to work unless they pledge not to take such action again without first warning the company. The lockout comes in response to the start of a 24-hour strike earlier yesterday by the workers at ABC-TV and ABC Radio. The workers said they walked out because ABC and its parent, Disney, are demanding they drop their current health care coverage and switch to Disney's new Signature plan.</br></br>The court-appointed officer for the Teamsters election mailed ballots to the union's 1.4 million members, who have one month to choose James P. Hoffa, son of Jimmy Hoffa, or Tom Leedham, head of the union's warehouse division, as the next union president. Hoffa narrowly lost his bid to unseat incumbent Ron Carey in 1996, but the results of that contest were overturned when investigators concluded that Carey's campaign had raised funds illegally.</br></br>BMC Software of Houston, a maker of network monitoring software, said it will buy rival Boole & Babbage for about $900 million in stock to extend its international business. San Jose-based Boole & Babbage's software helps companies manage and operate computer networks that use different kinds of computers and operating systems.</br></br>The Chicago Mercantile Exchange begins offering a futures contract today that allows companies to profit from an increase in the number of customers who can't pay their bills. It is targeting lenders in the $1.3 trillion market for consumer credit by basing the contract's value on the number of bankruptcy filings each quarter.</br></br>SyQuest Technology, once the leader in removable memory storage devices for personal computers, said it has suspended operations and may file for bankruptcy. Analysts blamed the Fremont, Calif.-based company's apparent demise on a shaky business model. They said SyQuest was also hurt by the Asian financial crisis, weak PC sales earlier this year and the expense of expansion amid a disk drive industry downturn.