Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 11, 1994 TAG: 9409120088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wayne Friend, president of Local 1023 of the United Rubber Workers, said the union hopes to have some of the restraining order's restrictions eased during Monday's proceedings before Circuit Judge G.O. Clemens. The restraining order places limits on picketing at the company's Salem plant.
As far as he can determine, Friend said, the union has never before been forbidden to congregate within 500 yards of a plant, as the Yokohama restraining order requires. The order also limits the number of pickets at each of the plant's four gates to four.
Friend complained that when he stopped by the plant Friday night to see if the pickets had enough ice and soft drinks, a policeman pulled in behind him and sat on his bumper until he pulled out.
The Rubber Workers struck the Salem plant at midnight July 23, when the union's three-year contract with the Company expired. The major issue keeping the two sides apart is a demand by the company that more employees work on weekends. The company made what it said was its final offer to the union week before last and has been producing tires at the plant using supervisors, salaried workers and temporary hires during the strike.
U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, who is running for re-election, accompanied by Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, stopped by the picket line Saturday morning to wish the striking workers well, Friend said. Friend was aggravated, though, that Robb made the visit without telling the news media about it.
Yokohama's full-page advertisement in the Roanoke Times & World-News on Friday continues to nag at Friend, who doesn't think the union is making its bargaining position clear to the public.
Wages have not been an issue in the labor dispute.
Under the old contract, an average union worker earned $26.63 hourly in wages and benefits, above average for manufacturing in the Roanoke Valley but, according to Friend, near the bottom in the tire industry.
At Goodyear's Danville tire plant, union workers earned nearly $31 an hour in wages and benefits under their old contract and have increased that by around $4.50 an hour under their new agreement, Friend said. Yokohama workers have been offered $2.50 an hour more in wages and benefits, a figure that would drop Yokohama workers even further behind those in Danville, Friend said.
by CNB