No Jobs Will Be Lost in Merger, Utilities Say

Executives at San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison, who had estimated that 1,084 jobs would be lost at the two companies after a proposed merger, said Tuesday that no employees will be left without a job should the merger occur.

A year ago, the two utilities said that they had to eliminate an estimated 1,084 jobs in order to help produce $1.7 billion in savings that would be used to lower rates if the merger is completed.

Utility executives now believe that normal attrition at the two companies will trim employment to the point that “no one will lose their jobs” because of the merger, SDG&E; vice president Edwin A. Guiles said Tuesday during the local utility’s annual shareholder meeting. “We think that is a very positive statement for our employees,” Guiles said.

However, the two companies won’t know until much later this year which jobs will continue to exist and where those jobs will be, SDG&E; vice president George Weida said. And, “not everyone will have their (existing) job,” Weida said, because some employees would be retrained or relocated if the merger goes through.

It is possible that “hundreds” of SDG&E; and Edison employees will be asked to accept transfers to jobs outside their home town, Edison spokesman Lewis Phelps said.

A year ago, Edison and SDG&E; estimated that as many as 1,700 employees faced possible transfers. However, Phelps on Tuesday said that total was “an assumption about what potential relocation costs would be incurred . . . it was a very conservative number.”

Edison and SDG&E; now believe that far fewer employees would have to relocate. “We’re talking in the hundreds,” said Phelps, who said it was still too early to set a final figure.

Employees who decide not to accept transfers will “have severance protection as provided in the merger agreement,” Guiles said.

Most of the positions that will be eliminated should the merger occur would be in the corporate offices of the two utilities, Guiles said. “In some cases, individuals will be asked to move,” Guiles said. “They . . . will have a personal decision to make.”

SDG&E; Chairman Tom Page, who called relocations “disruptive” and “expensive,” predicted that “fewer people are going to move to . . . Rosemead . . . than anybody ever thought.”

Guiles said jobs would be eliminated over two to three years.