April 21, 1983

Because of an error by the Associated Press, a picture caption in some copies of Sports Pages yesterday incorrectly identified a Yankee infielder taking a throw at second base at a game in Chicago Tuesday night. He is Willie Randolph.

For the more than 70 percent of American workers who are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement or an individual employment contract, dismissal is an ever-present possibility. The nation's courts have traditionally ruled that such employees can be dismissed at any time - for any reason or for no reason - a status known as ''employment at will.'' That status is becoming a thing of the past, though, as more and more courts around the country are taking steps to help protect workers, either by finding in the working arrangement an implied contract or implied guarantee of fair dealing, or by going even further and finding that unjust dismissal was a civil offense for which the employer should pay punitive damages. In New York and several other states, courts have found implied contracts, and therefore legal protection against dismissal, in the statements of company policy found in employee handbooks.

As many as 17,000 families are illegally doubling up in apartments in New York City's public projects because of the economy and the shortage of housing for the poor, according to estimates by city officials. The City Housing Authority says the number, which represents about 10 percent of all families in public projects, is the largest since immediately after World War II, when returning veterans married and moved in with tenants in the projects. ''The problem is growing geometrically,'' said Joseph J. Christian, chairman of the Housing Authority. ''It's a human tragedy and an administrative nightmare.''

To many New Yorkers, the changes taking place at Citibank branches around the city are jarring, if not infuriating. Some of the changes seem downright discriminatory against people with little money, such as a policy being introduced that forces Citibank's low-balance customers to use machines rather than human tellers. And the changes are coming so quickly and in so many areas that many people - customers and employees alike - are having a hard time understanding them. Although it seems at times that Citibank goes out of its way to antagonize customers, William J. Heron Jr., the Bronx-bred, 41-yearold senior vice president in charge of metropolitan-area branches, said that the bank's sole objective is to give the public what it wants. That, he continued, is the only way the bank will be able to serve all consumers, rich and poor, and still make money.

A pink diamond valued at $500,000 to $600,000 was reported stolen from Sotheby Parke Bernet galleries the afternoon before it was to be auctioned, the police said yesterday. Appraisers at the Manhattan auction house discovered the theft when they found that the 9.58-carat diamond had been replaced by an inferior diamond colored with pink nail polish. While bidders filled the gallery at York Avenue and 72d Street yesterday, spending $6.6 million on jewelry, police officers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked to solve what a police spokesman called ''the mystery of the big switch.'' The mystery: How was the emerald-cut diamond removed from its locked glass display case and switched with the nail-polished gem during the presale exhibition in a room filled with Sotheby's workers and armed guards and monitored by videotape cameras?