July 31, 1982

Leaders of the United Steelworkers of America, in a surprise action, today rejected an industry proposal to replace the present contract with a new one. The steel companies had said a new contract was mandatory if their labor costs were to be made competitive and the industry was to be revived. The existing contract is now likely to stand until next year, union officials said. They said the industry's three-year proposal would have frozen direct wages and eliminated cost-of-living increases for the first year and would have placed a 50-cent ceiling on cost-of-living increases in each of the next two years. It was unanimously rejected by about 400 presidents of union locals at a 40-minute meeting here.

Israeli forces attacked Palestinian neighborhoods and artillery positions in west Beirut from the land, sea and air today. Philip C. Habib, the special United States envoy to the Middle East, arranged for a new cease-fire to begin at 9 P.M. Lebanese time (3 P.M. New York time). Today's attacks began hours after the Palestine Liberation Organization presented Lebanon's Prime Minister, Shafik al-Wazzan, with a detailed plan for the withdrawal of P.L.O. guerrillas from the besieged capital.

The New Jersey Commission of Investigation urged the Legislature today to delay passage of bills appropriating more than $100 million for local sewer projects. The commission said the funds should be withheld until legislation could be enacted to insure that the money ''won't be squandered or stolen.'' The move came at the close of four days of public hearings into the operation of local sewerage and utility authorities, and some witnesses told of mismanagement and corruption in several authorities. The commission said it would have specific recommendations for the Legislature within 60 days to help enforce greater financial oversight.

Comparative figures gathered for the first time by the Board of Education show that reading scores are higher in the New York City Public Schools than in all but one of seven other big cities known to use the same standarized test. New York is also one of only two of the cities in which the majority of the elementary and junior high pupils are reading above the national average, according to statistics compiled by the school system's Division of Curriculum and Instruction. ''This makes us feel relatively sanguine about what we are doing,'' said Charlotte Frank, executive director of the curriculum division. The cities with which New York City compared itself are Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Omaha, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. Officials here said these were the only large cities found to use the California Achievement Test. Direct comparisons with many other cities are difficult because of different testing.

The Federal Reserve Board yesterday reduced to 11 percent the rate it charges on loans to banks and other financial institutions. The reduction, from a rate of 11 1/2 percent, gave new impetus to recent declines in interest rates and prompted analysts to predict further declines in coming weeks. ''The Fed is anxious to do its part in bringing interest rates down,'' said Maury Harris, an economist at Paine Webber Inc, a securities firm. ''This is a good sign for the economy, which needs lower rates for healthy growth.''