LABOR

Edison, Utility Workers Reach Contract Agreement: The Utility Workers Union of America Local 246 and SCEcorp, parent of Southern California Edison Co., announced an agreement on a two-year contract. The union represents 2,100 of the utility’s 16,500 workers. Negotiations will be taken up again today between Edison and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 47, with 5,000 Edison workers, which have been at loggerheads over a contract for more than six months. Edison has laid off more than 400 workers this spring as California’s investor-owned utilities cut costs in anticipation of electric-utility deregulation.