Section Twoin Oklahoma City. Thrifty and Avis both have reservations
operations in Tulsa, and Budget’s reservations operations are in
Carrolton, Texas. Reservations operations for Hyatt Hotels are
located in Omaha, Nebraska. These geographic areas offer
wage advantages over many areas in the United States, and
location is irrelevant to the nature of the work performed.
Recently, manufacturing companies have been relocating
out of California because of the high costs of land and labor as
well as the regulative environment. For example, California-
based Applied Materials built a new $100 million facility in
Texas because of such factors. Other examples include Weiser
Lock, which closed a plant in California and moved it to Tucson
where labor and cost of living are substantially lower. Similarly,
Atlas Pacific Engineering relocated from northern California to
Pueblo, Colorado, for lower labor and land costs.^114 Companies
from service industries also are relocating. Bank of America, for
example, relocated its credit card unit from Pasadena to
Phoenix.^115 Additionally, the expense of operating in such high-
cost areas as New York City has prompted some large
companies to move their headquarters to less expensive areas.
W. R. Grace announced its intentions to move its headquarters
to Florida while JCPenney and Exxon–Mobil had already
moved their headquarters from New York to the
Dallas/Fort Worth area.^116