Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER NOTE: above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It was hard to find a union member who planned to vote for the contract after a three-hour meeting at the Salem Civic Center attended by most of the union's members. Even the union's local president and vice president said they would vote against the contract.
What seemed to bother workers most was a proposal to operate the plant with 12-hour workdays. The proposed schedule calls for alternating workweeks of three and four 12-hour days. This would allow the company to operate the plant fully seven days a week.
The company's desire to have more workers eligible for weekend work has been the main issue keeping the company and union from agreeing to a new contract. About 800 workers, including about 770 union members, have been on strike at the plant since July 23, when Yokohama's three-year contract with the union expired.
Negotiators for the company and the union announced Thursday they had finally agreed on a contract. Union members are to vote Wednesday on whether to ratify it.
The pending contract calls for all employees to be eligible for weekend work. Earlier, the company had proposed that the approximately 175 workers hired since Jan. 1, 1984, be required to work Saturdays and Sundays. Another 150 employees hired since 1991 already were working weekends under terms of the union's last contract with the company.
Monday's meeting was closed to outsiders, but it was not hard to gauge the mood of the workers as they wandered in and out of the meeting room at the civic center and stood in small groups discussing the contract's provisions.
Local union President Wayne Friend described reaction to the contract as "mixed." Most of the questions asked about the contract centered on the weekend work, he said.
Friend said he had presented the contract to the membership as "the best we could possibly get at this time." But Friend said he would not vote to ratify it himself.
The company has not indicated what it might do if the union turns down the contract Wednesday, Friend said. Company officials were unavailable Monday for comment.
Some workers said they would be open to some arrangement that would allow the company to operate the plant all week, as long as it didn't include 12-hour workdays. Algie McCoy of Roanoke County said he didn't like the proposed 12-hour days because workers wouldn't get overtime pay for time worked over eight hours.
Union leaders told the membership they had agreed to bring the proposed contract to a vote because of company accusations that the union leaders were not letting the workers have a say in the outcome of the strike, McCoy said.
McCoy, who has worked at the plant 19 years, said he doesn't think the contract will be ratified Wednesday. "That's the maddest I've seen the union people," he said.
Harold VanHuss Jr. and his wife, Jennifer, were at the civic center to support his father, a plant employee for 21 years. "You can't work these guys 12 hours, not with the hard work they do," Jennifer VanHuss said. "When he goes in there and works eight hours, he looks like he's half dead," his son said.
The senior VanHuss, a 49-year-old Roanoke County resident, said after the meeting that he liked the retirement and other benefits in the contract but overall didn't like what he heard. "A lot of the people in there are getting too old to work 12-hour days," he said.
Bill Boone, a union worker from New Castle, said, however, that what people say in a group often differs from what they do in the privacy of the voting booth. He said he liked the contract's equal treatment of all workers and the fact that workers would no longer have to work mandatory overtime.
Another consideration, Boone said, is that the workers' health insurance benefits will be terminated Oct. 21 if they are still on strike. "That's going to weigh heavily on these guys' minds," he said.
Wages have not been an issue in the contract talks. Under the old contract, Yokohama workers earned an average of $26.63 an hour in wages and benefits, of which about $17.70 was wages, Friend said. Yokohama has said the new contract contains a raise in wages and benefits of $2.50 over three years, but Friend said the union hasn't been able to determine whether that figure is accurate.
The contract includes a cost-of-living raise and increases in the extra pay for night and weekend work but no increase in base pay. The pay of Yokohama workers is high for the Roanoke Valley, but Friend noted that it is low for the tire industry. Union workers who make Goodyear tires, already making more than $4 more than Yokohama workers, received a $4.50 increase in their new contract, Friend said.
Other provisions in the proposed contract include:
An increase in pension benefits of $10 for each year of service. The company would pay for $6 of the increase and the union $4 through a decrease in the cost-of-living wage increase.
Changes in the way temporary summer help is assigned work - an issue that has caused friction between the company and union.
Improvements in the grievance procedure where a backlog of unprocessed grievances exists.
A $500 ratification bonus for workers and retirees.
by CNB