Two local pension plans wind up on the fed's list of nation's sickest.

Los Angeles pension professionals last week reacted anxiously to news from a federal agency revealing that the nation's 50 sickest pension plans grew 13 percent sicker last year.

The pension funds of L.A.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Carter Hawley Hale Stores were among the 50 most underfunded plans in the country, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

Other companies falling short, such as General Motors Corp., Trans World Airlines and Rockwell International, are headquartered elsewhere, but have many L.A.-area employees, according to union representatives.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which tracks company pension levels, revealed Nov. 19, only the names of the 50 companies with the largest underfunded pensions. These companies had collectively failed to set aside money to cover $24.2 billion in promised benefits in 1991, up from $21.5 billion the prior year.

The federal guaranty agency insures old-age payouts for 40 million Americans if their employers default on pension promises. The guaranty agency also disclosed that its own payout war chest has a $2.5 billion deficit that is growing.

If trends aren't reversed, agency Executive Director James B. Lockhart said his bailout agency could be facing another S&L debacle, with taxpayers ultimately picking up a tab for billions of dollars.

"It's potentially a very serious problem. There are huge underfunded pensions out there," said Randolph Westerfield, chairman of the finance department at the University of Southern California's School of Business Administration. "Even a few defaults could bring the system down."

Local workers most likely to be hurt someday by an underfunded pension are those in defense- and aerospace-related fields, said Westerfield.

Yet many Southland workers are more worried about job security rather than pension security.

Jim Henry, a financial secretary with Paramount-based United Aerospace Workers Local 887, which has 3,000 workers at Rockwell, said no one worried about their pension had called the union. But Henry said it could be a concern.

"With all the layoffs, there are a lot of people suddenly retiring. It puts a big drain on the pension fund," he said.

Bill Fiore, a director at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 101, with employees at Carter Hawly Hale's Emporium stores said, "The pensions are such a paltry sum for most people, it doesn't keep them up at night."

He said a 65-year-old worker with 35 years of service at CHH would take home a pension of only $348 a month. Although the union is concerned about pension safety, Fiore said, "at this point we're just more concerned about the stores staying open."

One giant, troubled plan belongs to GM workers. It is 81 percent funded, with $9.3 billion in unfunded (guaranteed) liabilities.

"We got several calls from our members," worried about the security of their GM pensions, said Ray Knudson, trustee with United Autoworkers Local 645 in Van Nuys. "We're not too afraid of General Motors not making good on its pension payments," said Knudson. "I think I'm retiring next year, and I'm not worried."

However, Christian Bement, the L.A.-based president-elect of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, whose largely union plans are adequately funded, said, "There's a false sense of security out there."

Companies can fall behind on pension provisions when they face a cash squeeze, borrow pension money for acquisitions, or mismanage funds, among other reasons.

The particular pension plans at issue are "defined-benefit" plans, where a company promises a specific amount of monthly cash to the retiree until death.

On the positive side, Lockhart said most plans are well-funded. He said no collapse of his agency will come if Congress gives it more power to deal with deadbeat plans. While some pension experts accuse him of crying wolf, most agree there is little near-term threats to workers, as long as their company stays in business.

If it doesn't, and its plan is taken over by the bail-out agency -- as happened in 1990 for 15,000 Eastern Air Lines workers -- typically 10-to-20 percent of workers lose some benefits. Some lose more than 50 percent, according to the agency. There also is a cap on bailout payouts of $28,227 a year for each retiree or survivor, no matter how much the company may have promised.

There may never be any threat to local workers at Oxy or Carter Hawley Hale, said experts, even though Carter Hawley Hale's $143 million in guaranteed payouts was only 56 percent funded in 1991, and Oxy's $177 million in insured promises were only 65 percent funded.

A spokesman at Oxy refused to comment on the pension issue. Bill Dombrowski, a spokesman for Carter Hawley Hale, said no one at the company currently collecting a pension is at risk and criticized the accounting methods of the guaranty agency.

In fact, Carter Hawley Hale workers saw their company emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year without letting its pension plan go bust, although the underfunding levels worsened to 56 percent from 62 percent the previous year. Oxy, however, was not among the 50 worst last year.

"Just because a company is doing OK now, it's not a guarantee they will be doing OK next year," noted Bement. "Who would have expected five years ago that aerospace, retailers and airlines would be doing so badly today?"

Lynne Adelman, Los Angeles executive board officer of the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants for TWA, said 60 percent of her daily phone calls are from workers worried about their pension plans.

While Carl Icahn has offered to lend $200 million to keep TWA afloat, the federal pension guaranty agency has not yet agreed to the deal.

"We're very concerned about this," said Adelman. "I think everyone right now is crossing their fingers and saying their prayers."

Adelman said 75 percent of the union's 1,500 workers are in California and many of the senior employees, with more vested in retirement plans, live in Southern California.

Adelman said the pension issue should be a concern for the entire country and warned workers to keep tabs on their company plans.

Whether Congress would back pension payouts 100 percent, as it did lost deposits, "is a political decision," said Richard Mercer, ex-president of the L.A. chapter of Western Pension Benefits Conference, a professional association. He declined to speculate on the odds of the bail-out agency going bust.

A recent "Economic Report" of the Federal Reserve Bank at Atlanta questioned "whether legislators have learned from the deposit insurance debacle and whether they will recognize and remedy the problems with pension insurance before it too requires a taxpayer bailout" in the future.