GTE Closures May Cost Up to 400 Jobs : Communications: Company confirms plans to shut two L.A.-area facilities and is weighing the future of a third.

GTE California, the state’s second-largest telephone company, plans to close three Los Angeles-area facilities and transfer as many as 400 jobs out of state, union officials said Tuesday.

GTE officials confirmed plans to close the company’s Norwalk and Thousand Oaks long-distance access centers, which employ 255 people.

The jobs will be transferred to GTE facilities in Durham, N.C., Tampa, Fla., and St. Angelo and Irving, Tex.

The company acknowledged that it is also considering closing its Long Beach network operations monitoring center, which could imperil another 160 jobs.

However, officials of the Communications Workers of America and some GTE employees said they have already been told that the Long Beach facility will be closed next year and that the jobs will be transferred to Irving.

A GTE spokesman said the job transfers are a part of a continuing effort to consolidate operations at company facilities in Texas, North Carolina and Florida, and to automate jobs now performed by humans.

GTE has cut about 1,000 jobs annually in California for the last 12 years, the spokesman said.

Union workers said the company has told the affected employees that they may apply for transfers to the out-of-state jobs, but they noted that pay scales in those areas may be as much as $3 an hour lower than in California.

GTE said employees at the Long Beach center, which opened just six months ago, have only been warned of the facility’s possible closure.

The center monitors calling traffic on the GTE network and alerts technicians to problems.

Employees at the Norwalk and Thousand Oaks centers connect California callers with long-distance companies. By transferring those jobs out of state, a company spokesman said, GTE hopes to standardize service levels and reduce labor costs.