ORANGE : City to Vote on Pact With TRW for Jobs

The City Council is to vote tonight on a deal that could result in payments of as much as $2 million over the next 10 years to TRW in return for the company’s keeping its credit reporting division employees in the city.

“We are pleased; TRW is pleased; everyone seems to be pleased,” said Mayor Gene Beyer. “It saves a number of jobs.”

The plan calls for the city’s Redevelopment Agency to pay TRW a maximum of $200,000 a year for the next decade, provided that the company employs at least 1,000 full-time employees at its Orange facility.

As long as TRW employs a minimum of 750 full-time workers at the site, it will receive $100,000 from the city.

For each employee over 750, the city will add $400 to its payments, until the total reaches 1,000 workers.

The deal has been in the works since the spring, when TRW announced plans to move its credit reporting division headquarters--and 1,200 jobs--to either Dallas, Cleveland or Denver.

Orange officials said they feared not only the possible loss of about 1,200 TRW jobs, but the trickle-down effect on the city if it lost its sixth-largest employer.

But the agreement has critics. Orange mayoral candidate and longtime civic activist Carole Walters said the city seems to be showing more concern for private corporations than its own employees, who are being asked to take a 10% pay cut to help balance the city budget.

“The city is helping keep their employees here, but our employees are getting a cutback,” Walters said. “I’m upset about that.”

TRW workers make up 20% of the daytime population of The City office complex and city officials estimate that they spent almost $7.5 million in Orange in 1991.

“We received letters from quite a few merchants in The City Shopping Center who attributed a strong percentage of their sales to TRW,” Beyer said.

The TRW offices will remain in The City, a large office park in Orange, where the company occupies 10 floors in three separate buildings.

The agreement also stipulates that Tishman Parkway Venture and The City, as owners of the property, must undertake a minimum of $2.5 million in property improvements over the 10 years of the agreement, in order to add to the value of the property.

The company is required to count two part-time workers as one full-time employee, but part-timers cannot exceed 15% of the employees, said Ellen Bonneville, economic development operations manager with the Redevelopment Agency.

“Clearly we’re pleased we are able to remain in Orange,” said Susan Murdy, a spokeswoman for TRW.

“It’s positive not only for employee base but for the community as well. Our employees work and support the local business community and I think it’s win-win for everyone concerned.”