Friday morning headlines

Chrysler slashes white collar jobs: About 5,000 employees will be hit. Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said “never before have auto industry sales contracted at such a fast rate.” Obviously, lower gas prices aren’t helping much. (MarketWatch)

Gas prices plunge: Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring says pump prices have never come down this fast in such a short period. The latest survey shows that the average price of regular in the L.A. area is $3.22 per gallon, which is 16.4 cents less than last week and only nine cents above last year. Some stations are charging less than $3 a gallon.

Oil prices tumble: That's despite OPEC's announcement this morning that it would reduce production by at least 1.5 million barrels a day (the deepest cut in five years). At last check, oil was trading around $63 a barrel, down $4 on the day. The peak was $147 in July. (NYT)

Home sales jump in SFV: It's the same pattern we've seen throughout Socal: September sales were up 82 percent from a year earlier, while the median price fell 37 percent, to $231,000. That's the lowest median price in five years. (Daily News)

LAX Hilton penalized: Regulators ordered the owner of the airport hotel to stop harassing workers who have engaged in union organizing. The ruling from the National Labor Relations Board also requires the hotel owner to compensate 76 workers who were suspended for organizing activities. From the Business Journal:

The ruling stems from a round of suspensions of LAX Hilton workers in May 2006 following a picket protest. Union officials claimed the suspensions were unjustified and that workers involved in union organizing activities had been harassed by hotel management. In siding with the union, National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge John McCarrick said that the organizing actions conducted by the suspended workers were within the bounds of protected activities and that Hilton managers had violated the workers’ rights in suspending and threatening the workers.

Developers opposing SM cap: They've collected almost $730,000 to defeat a measure that would limit commercial development in Santa Monica. Some of the money has come from developers in NY, Houston and Chicago. Supporters are worried. (LAT)

Got $18 million?: That's how much American Tours CEO Noel Irwin-Hentschel has listed her Normandy-style mansion in Bel-Air (you might recall that she ran for governor in 1998). She and her husband paid $3.75 million for the house in 1995. (WSJ)

Assessing Downey: I was on Patt Morrison’s show yesterday to discuss the Newport Beach thrift and other bank stuff. Here’s the link to KPCC.org.