Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 25, 1994                   TAG: 9407250094
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER NOTE: Above
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIRE PLANT UNION GOES OUT ON STRIKE

"They want to take what we've had for the last 17 years," said William Maxey, a union member picketing at the plant.

Nearly 800 workers, including all 758 union members, struck the plant at midnight Saturday.

"Negotiations broke down ... and we were still a long way apart, so we called the strike," said local union president Wayne Friend.

He said union members had voted in advance overwhelmingly to strike if an acceptable agreement could not be reached by midnight, when the contract ratified in 1991 expired. Even the approximately 30 non-union workers at the plant walked out, according to Friend.

Friend said the main issues on the table are treatment of younger weekend workers and attempts to force older workers, some with as much as 10 years of seniority, onto the weekend shift. He said, in general, the contract Yokohama offered asked for concessions and reductions in almost every area, including pension and other benefits.

In a news release sent from Yokohama headquarters in Fullerton, Calif., Richard Switzer, the Salem vice president for manufacturing, said it was disappointing that an agreement could not be reached before the strike. He could not be reached for further comment.

Union members were staked out with lawn chairs, coolers and cases of sodas at all three gates to the plant, which was shut down Sunday.

"That's the way it's gonna stay, I hope, until we get what we want," said picketer Chris Pressley.

"Maybe Governor Allen will come down here and give us $135,000," union member Toby King said, referring to the recent state grant Yokohama got for expansion at the Salem facility.

The last strike at the plant was a bitter five-week affair in 1988, when the plant was owned by Mohawk Rubber Co. The union finally accepted a one-year wage freeze.

Friend said the union would welcome the opportunity to go back to the bargaining table if the company would make an honest effort, but he did not seem hopeful.

He says the contract Yokohama offered is symptomatic of a broader trend in the rubber industry, most of which is now owned by foreign companies.

"For foreign companies to come in here and force concessions and try to change people's lifestyles is unacceptable by American standards," Friend said.