Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 26, 1994 TAG: 9407270063
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Rubber Workers Local 1023 struck the plant at midnight Saturday after 15 negotiating sessions between the company and union failed to produce a new three-year contract. The company and union have made little progress toward a new contract since talks began June 7, said Wayne Friend, local union president.
About 800 workers, including 758 union members, are out on strike.
Friend said he was surprised the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. He said he had been telling union members not to expect a strike, based on Yokohama's profits and a settlement the company made with workers in its Japanese plants.
No further talks are scheduled, both sides said. The company confirmed its intent to resume limited production at the plant with about 150 supervisors.
The strike at Yokohama is the fourth called this summer by the Rubber Workers against foreign-owned tire makers. The union recently reached an agreement with Goodyear, the only remaining large U.S.-owned tire company.
Friend said the issues in the other disputes are similar to those at Yokohama, which is owned by Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd., a Japanese company.
The union local leader said the union has a backlog of 200 grievances to settle with the Salem plant's management, which he said prefers to drag out the complaints by investigating rather than settling them. The union has filed many charges against the company with the National Labor Relations Board, Friend said.
Kelly Teenor, a spokesman at Yokohama's U.S. headquarters in Fullerton, Calif., attributed the grievance backlog to ``growing pains'' within the plant. She noted that Yokohama has expanded the plant and added jobs since purchasing it in 1989.
Central to the union's dispute with Yokohama is a proposal to make an additional 150 union workers who were hired over the past 10 years eligible for weekend shift work. Under the last contract, another 150 workers who were hired after July 1991 were eligible for the weekend shifts.
The company wants to bring the plant up to full weekend production, Teenor said.
Under their old contract, workers at the plant made an average of $26.63 an hour in wages and benefits. Friend said the union's agreement elsewhere with Goodyear provides an increase in wages and benefits amounting to $4.50 over three years, raising average compensation in wages and benefits at the end of the contract to $35.48.
Teenor said the company had offered the union an increase in wages and benefits but was not able to say how much had been offered. Friend, however, said the company had not offered an increase in wages and benefits and, to the contrary, wants to increase the union's share of health care costs.
Friend said the company wants to increase the health care deductible for individuals from $100 to $300 per year and for families from $300 to $600. The company has also proposed raising the total out-of-pocket share for employees from $1,100 to $3,000 per year.
The company also wants to tie cost-of-living wage adjustments to productivity levels and to force some workers to take their vacations during the winter, Friend said.
The union has scheduled an informational meeting for employees for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Salem Civic Center.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***