MDU cuts appliance service, job positions

BISMARCK (AP) — Montana-Dakota Utilities is cutting its appliance service, a move that will leave about 50 service workers jobless.

MDU has offered a service plan that covers a variety of gas and electric appliances. The new plan starting next year will cover water heaters and furnaces only, spokesman Mark Hanson said.

“This is just going back to what the core of our business is,” he said.

The utility also is phasing out its appliance sales. The moves affect customers of MDU and Great Plains Natural Gas.

MDU Resources Inc., the parent company of the utilities, recently announced plans to consolidate five call centers in North Dakota, Idaho and Washington into two centers, in Bismarck and Boise, Idaho; sell an office building in Seattle; do away with customer walk-in traffic; and cut about 130 jobs in eight states over the next nine months. The 50 service workers are included in that.

Hanson said affected workers could be notified by mid-March.

Dwayne Schmidt, financial officer with union IBW975, which has 400 service workers with MDU in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, said the program cuts were a surprise.

“It’s a blow to everybody,” he said.

MDU Resources Group reported a 32 percent drop in profits in 2008 and cited lower prices for oil and natural gas.

rrr

On the Net:

MDU Resources Group Inc., http://www.mdu. com/

Tags: news, mdu, jobs, layoffs, cuts, economy