McDonnell Says Southland Work Force Cutbacks to Total 8,550 in ’93

McDonnell Douglas Corp., citing the slumps in defense, commercial and space aviation, said Friday that it will have eliminated 8,550 Southern California jobs during 1993, including another 800 layoffs planned for this month.

All told, McDonnell said, it has eliminated 60,000 jobs nationwide, or 45% of its work force, since mid-1990, some of the starkest evidence yet of how frantically the aerospace industry has been cutting back, particularly in Southern California.

The St. Louis-based concern said between 450 and 500 of the December layoffs will occur at its Douglas Aircraft commercial jetliner assembly plant in Long Beach, and 300 to 350 at its space systems group in Huntington Beach.

Some of those layoffs had already been announced, and most of the employees involved have been notified. The space group, for instance, said in October that it would cut back because of reduced funding for the proposed U.S. space station.

McDonnell is down to 72,000 employees, thanks to declines in Pentagon budgets, certain NASA programs and demand for passenger jets. And the cutting isn’t finished.

Indeed, McDonnell’s latest announcement included plans to eliminate another 1,150 jobs by closing a plant in Tulsa, Okla., that mainly builds fuselage parts for the F-15 fighter jet.

The retrenching has left many of Douglas Aircraft’s remaining assembly workers deeply worried.

“There’s fear of the future” even though “the production people at the Long Beach plant have been cut to the bare bone,” said Douglas Griffith, president of United Aerospace Workers Local 148, the workers’ union.

In a letter to employees, McDonnell Chairman John F. McDonnell said the company’s consolidation is not over, because “deep reductions in U.S. defense procurement continue.” He also noted that McDonnell Douglas has vacated 18 million square feet of work space since 1991.

But the actions have also bolstered McDonnell’s financial health and benefited its investors, including its employee stock ownership plan, McDonnell’s biggest shareholder. McDonnell’s stock, which began 1993 at $48.25 a share, closed Friday at $114 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.