Rockwell Unit in Santa Ana to Close This Year

Rockwell International said Tuesday it will close its Collins Defense Communications facilities in Santa Ana by the end of September, eliminating 534 jobs.

The Rockwell subsidiary will transfer the Santa Ana operations to Collins plants in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Dallas as part of an ongoing consolidation and cost-reduction program.

A Collins spokesman said the move was prompted in part by anticipated cuts in Pentagon budgets over the next several years.

“We’re trying to remain as competitive as we’ve been in the face of a defense electronics cycle that probably won’t have the growth it has had in recent years,” said E. Scott Wood, a Collins spokesman.

A spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2125, which represents 85 Collins workers in Santa Ana, said technical problems on some defense electronics projects also played a part in the decision.

“They were having technical problems with some of the projects,” said Jan Newman, IBEW business manager. “They were over budget on several of the projects and untimely on some projects.”

The company would not discuss specific programs, many of which involve classified military work. But Wood said the decision to close the plant “was not related to any one program, whether we were having problems or not.”

Collins officials said an undetermined number of Santa Ana workers will be offered jobs in Iowa and Texas. The company has a career continuation program to help employees find jobs at other Rockwell facilities in California or, if necessary, with other employers.

Newman said Collins officials have told the union that 15 to 20 of its members may be hired at Rockwell’s Newport Beach-based semiconductor division. About 15 other union members have “bumping” rights enabling them to replace union members with less seniority at other Rockwell sites.

Although rumors of a shutdown have circulated among employees since late last year, workers leaving the Collins plant on West Warner Avenue Tuesday afternoon expressed shock and sadness at the closing.

“We’ve been hearing rumors for the last six months,” said H. (Bernie) Bernier, 50, stopping his bicycle outside the plant gate to talk with a reporter. “But it’s still a shock. There is a lot of seniority there, a lot of people with 20 years or more with the company.”

Bernier, a resident of Santa Ana, is a machine maintenance employee and has worked for Collins for 28 years.

“We knew they were going to do something when they began downsizing the operation,” said Jim Baker, president of Local 2125.

Employment at the Santa Ana operation peaked at 600 about a year ago, Wood said.

The layoff, which will take place in phases beginning later this month, is among the county’s largest in recent years. Other significant reductions include the elimination of 1,000 jobs by the Irvine Co., a large land developer, over the last two years; the loss of 300 jobs in late 1987 at Borden’s Laura Scudder snack-food plant in Anaheim, and job cuts involving about 400 people at Northrop’s Anaheim Electro-Mechanical Division in late 1986.

Rockwell’s Santa Ana operation performs engineering work and limited production of high-security communications equipment under classified federal government contracts. It also produces satellite communications terminals for the U.S. Air Force.

“We haven’t lost any contracts in those areas that would generate this move,” Wood said. “It’s just part of an overall direction in how we want to structure the division to be competitive in future years.”

Headquartered in Cedar Rapids, the Collins division employs 6,000 people in the United States and Canada. Other facilities are in Salt Lake City, Toronto and Shreveport, La.

In 1985, Rockwell invested $11 million to install a highly automated factory line at its Cedar Rapids operation. Wood said that the Iowa plant is among the most modern defense electronics factories in the country and that some of the Santa Ana operations will be moved to that plant.

The Santa Ana plants--at 3731 W. Warner Ave. and 2901 W. MacArthur Blvd.--have been in operation since 1981. The local operation traces its origins to the former Collins Radio Co. facility acquired by Rockwell when it bought Collins in 1973.

Rockwell, an El Segundo-based aerospace and defense giant, employs 14,000 people in Orange County and ranks as the county’s second-largest private employer, exceeded only by Hughes Aircraft’s Ground Systems Group in Fullerton. Rockwell has facilities in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Seal Beach and Newport Beach.