City, Hughes Form Jobs Task Force : Economy: Aircraft company that bought General Dynamics missile operations will join with San Diego civic leaders to try to create jobs for workers losing theirs in buyout.

Without guaranteeing that any jobs will be found for workers facing layoffs, Hughes Aircraft and the city of San Diego announced Monday the formation of a task force to pursue ways of creating jobs for some of the 4,500 General Dynamics Convair missiles employees who stand to be let go over the next year.

At a press conference Monday at San Diego City Hall to describe their “unique civic-corporate partnership,” Hughes Aircraft Vice Chairman Michael T. Smith and Mayor Maureen O’Connor said the task force would search out job retraining grants as well as legislative incentives to make San Diego a more hospitable locale for business.

Smith said the displaced General Dynamics employees would have “priority” at new jobs opening up within Hughes Aircraft, which now employs 2,200 in its other San Diego-based operations, including Hughes Network Systems, its Industrial Products Division and Hughes JVC Technologies, a joint venture with JVC of Japan.

Also, there is a possibility that Hughes will manufacture components of General Motors’ new electric automobile in San Diego and use former General Dynamics employees to staff the plant, Smith said. State law mandates that 100,000 of the cars be on California roads by the end of the decade, Smith said. Plans for such a plant, however, are in the initial stages, he said.

Smith declined to guarantee that any of the General Dynamics employees would be given jobs at Hughes Aircraft. The electric car manufacturing plant could be years away from construction, and the public incentives from the city that Hughes Aircraft wants could take months or years to line up.

City Council members interviewed after Monday’s announcement offered opinions ranging from optimism to skepticism that the task force would find ways to replace a sizable portion of the General Dynamics jobs.

“Admittedly, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’d rather give (General Dynamics employees) a little ray of hope,” City Councilwoman Valerie Stallings said.

Another city councilman, who asked not to be identified, said, “I can’t find the substance in any of this. I can’t believe anybody thinks that this is such a great deal for the city. We’ve got 4,500 workers at risk, and what we’re hearing today is that maybe six or seven might be hired.”

In May, Hughes announced it would pay $450 million for General Dynamics’ missiles operation and that it would consolidate the manufacturing at the lowest cost locale. Hughes later said that the consolidation would likely take place at either the General Dynamics missiles plant in Pomona or Hughes’s underutilized, recently modernized Tucson plant.

The disclosure put 2,000 local employees of General Dynamics working on the Navy’s Tomahawk missile on notice that they would probably lose their jobs in such a consolidation. Another 2,500 General Dynamics employees working on the Advanced Cruise Missile for the Air Force are to be terminated when the contract runs out by next August.

Hughes Aircraft and General Dynamics are awaiting U.S. Department of Justice approval for the acquisition and expect the deal to close by the end of this month. Hughes will make the decision by October on where to consolidate the missile operations.

Currently, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas are dual source suppliers for the Tomahawk, but the Navy is reportedly leaning to using a single source for the weapon after competitive bidding starting as early as this January.

The task force will include members of San Diego’s congressional delegation, as well as representatives of Hughes Aircraft, San Diego City Council, the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego Economic Development Corp. and the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union that represents 1,200 General Dynamics workers.

The task force will report every two months to the city and to Hughes officials, the mayor said.