Convair Layoffs Expected From Cruise Missile Cuts : Economy: Bush’s budget plan could mean yet another round of cutbacks at the General Dynamics plant, but current contracts should keep workers busy until 1994.

President Bush’s decision to scale back the Advanced Cruise Missile program will prompt additional layoffs in 1994 among 2,500 General Dynamics Convair Division employees, who manufacture the nuclear-tipped missiles at a plant near Lindbergh Field.

Bush’s decision won’t immediately reduce employment levels in San Diego, General Dynamics spokesman Jack Isabel said Wednesday. However, in 1994, when Convair fills current and anticipated ACM contracts, what happens to those jobs “is anyone’s guess,” he said.

Bush said Tuesday in his State of the Union address that the Defense Department will save $1.3 billion between 1993 and 1997 by cutting back on the number of ACMs to be purchased from General Dynamics and St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas. The cutback will leave unaffected the jobs of more than 2,000 other Convair employees who build Tomahawk cruise missiles for the Navy.

While the cut might be welcome news for recession-weary taxpayers, Bush’s announcement was the latest in a string of bad news for Convair employees.

“There will, in fact, be more layoffs,” William Hickey, an International Assn. of Machinists official, said Wednesday.

In recent months, Convair has announced that 500 employees would be laid off because of a slowdown in orders for the MD-11 jetliner fuselages the company builds for McDonnell Douglas. Convair workers are also concerned that McDonnell Douglas’ planned joint venture with a Taiwan company might one day transfer fuselage construction to a foreign plant.

In late November, 275 Convair employees lost their jobs when the Defense Department unexpectedly cut funding for a new, classified version of the ACM. The employees were mostly engineers and white-collar workers.

In October, Bush directed the Defense Department to remove nuclear-tipped Tomahawk missiles from U.S. seagoing ships and submarines. The department will order fewer of the missiles in 1993 because of Bush’s directive, but Convair is uncertain how that will affect employment in coming years, Isabel said.

The recent cruise missile program cuts were driven by “recent global changes and the lessening of tension among superpowers,” he said.

In addition, General Dynamics’ Convair Division, formerly the sole supplier of cruise missiles to the Air Force, now must compete for those orders with McDonnell Douglas.

Bush’s announcement won’t prompt immediate job losses at Convair because the Air Force is expected to honor existing contracts. Convair has produced only 128 of 420 ACMs the Air Force previously ordered, Isabel said.

Additionally, Convair and McDonnell Douglas are competing for a 120-missile order the Air Force is expected to place later this year. Bush’s speech did not affect that order, Isabel said.

With existing orders and the anticipated order, Convair officials believe that employment will remain relatively steady until 1994, he said.

Because of that backlog, “we’re telling our people that those who are building ACMs at Convair will continue to do so,” Isabel said. “It’s important to note that this is not a program termination.”

Similarly, McDonnell Douglas, which produces ACMs at a plant in Titusville, Fla., does not expect layoffs for several years.

“We have missiles under contract to carry us through 1993,” McDonnell Douglas spokesman Jim Schleuter said Wednesday. The company hopes to win an Air Force contract to produce some of the 120 ACMs that will be ordered later this year, he said.

Cruise missiles were used for the first time in combat settings during the Persian Gulf War. Air Force B-52 bombers launched dozens of conventionally equipped cruise missiles at Iranian targets. Navy ships and submarines launched 291 Tomahawk missiles at enemy targets.