Unocal Plans Layoffs at Its Headquarters

Unocal Corp. said Monday that it will announce this week layoffs at its headquarters office and has found a buyer for its polymer manufacturing plants--including two in California--as it continues to trim in hard economic times.

Unocal’s intention to sell the manufacturing group was announced last spring. Belt-tightening among the 920-employee Los Angeles headquarters staff was announced to workers in an Aug. 2 internal memo.

Richard J. Stegemeier, chairman, would not say how many jobs will be cut in the firm’s headquarters offices, but added that they would not exceed 200 when counted with previously announced layoffs at Unocal’s science and technology research center in Brea.

This would appear to mean 100 layoffs among headquarters staff, since 100 of 780 employees were slated for layoff at the Brea facility after a July cost-savings study.

Stegemeier added that other layoffs might result after Unocal sells assets, including its auto truck stops, its Southeast marketing division and its mining subsidiary.

“If the recession doesn’t turn around here, the outlook for the energy industry will not be restored,” said Stegemeier, who was in Houston on Monday attending the annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main trade group.

Continuing previously announced plans to trim operations, Unocal also announced Monday that it will sell its polymers group to Rohm & Haas Co., a Philadelphia manufacturer of specialty chemicals.

The group produces vinyl, styrene-butadiene and acrylic polymers, which act as binders--essentially glues--in such products as adhesives, acrylic paint, the gloss paper coating in magazines, carpet backing, paper towels and baby diapers.

“Again this is part of our ongoing strategy to shift capital dollars over to projects that yield greater cash flow,” Unocal spokesman James H. Bray said.

Frank Robertson, business director for polymers and resins in North America at Rohm & Haas, said, “The Unocal business will complement nicely our own strengths in the polymer business . . . to provide a broader product line.”

Rohm & Haas, which mostly supplies base materials to manufacturers, is best known commercially as the maker of Plexiglas, an acrylic sheet substitute for glass.

Revenue in 1990 for Unocal’s polymer group, part of Unocal’s Union Oil Co. of California subsidiary, was $161 million, out of about $11 billion in total 1990 revenue for Unocal. Polymer revenue in 1990 for Rohm & Haas was $1.2 billion.

The California facilities are located in La Mirada, near Whittier, and Newark, about 20 miles southeast of Oakland. Other plants involved in the sale are in Kankakee and Lemont, Ill., and Charlotte, N.C., which also has a research facility. More than 400 Unocal employees work in the group, with 57 employees at the La Mirada plant and 25 at Newark.