Business Notes PLANT CLOSINGS

Lee Iacocca can understand why Wisconsin is called the Badger State. Its citizens and Governor Tommy Thompson have been in an uproar since Chrysler decided in January to shut down an 86-year-old assembly plant in Kenosha, which would put 5,500 employees out of work. Last week Iacocca offered a peace plan: a $20 million education-and-housing fund for the workers, to be financed by profits from new Chrysler vehicles sold in Wisconsin this year. Meeting with Thompson in Washington, Iacocca said he would consider keeping the plant open a few weeks or months longer than its planned Sept. 30 closing.

All that may fail to appease the Badgers. Wisconsin's attorney general is preparing a lawsuit against Chrysler claiming the company reneged on a 1987 promise to keep the plant open for five years in return for $5 million in job training from the state.