Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9409020017
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The talks, scheduled at the Holiday Inn-Tanglewood, are the first between union and management since July 23, when talks broke off just before the union's midnight strike deadline, according to Wayne Friend, president of URW Local 1023.
The two sides will meet with Phil Bradley, a mediator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, at 10 a.m. "I hope they break this thing loose and get it over with," Friend said Tuesday.
The strike involves 758 union members a few dozen other workers at the plant. Yokohama has continued limited production using managers.
Negotiations for a new three-year contract deadlocked over company demands for expanded weekend work, higher costs to workers for health care and linking cost-of-living wage adjustments to productivity levels. Under the previous contract, the average Yokohama production worker earned $26.63 an hour in wages and fringe benefits.
The strike at Yokohama was the fourth this summer by the United Rubber Workers against foreign-owned tire makers. Other strikes are under way around the country at plants owned by Dunlop, Bridgestone-Firestone and Pirelli Armstrong.
Yokohama Tire is a subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd., a Japanese company.
by CNB