Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280081
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM AND GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wayne Friend, president of Local 1023 of the United Rubber Workers at the Salem plant, said the company distributed a letter that said reopening discussion on the work week would cause further confusion and disruption in the plant.
Friend said he is unsure what the union will do next. "That's up to the membership," he said, noting it was the union's members who voted Oct. 16 to try to reopen some terms of the contract they ratified Oct. 5.
The union voted 233-222 at a regular union meeting to ask company management to discuss again both the weekend work schedules and a request for a $1.75 hourly raise spread over the three years of the contract. The union presented the request to management Monday.
Officials of URW Local 1023 met with company officials Thursday afternoon to receive the answer.
The central issue in the nearly 12-week-long strike by the Rubber Workers against Yokohama had been weekend work. The strike began July 23 and ended when workers ratified a new contract 418-297.
The contract that was approved calls for 175 more union workers, who were hired between 1984 and 1991, to be eligible for weekend work. Roughly 150 workers hired since 1991 already had been working weekends under the last contract. The company said it needs to operate the plant fully on weekends to keep up with competitors.
At one point during the strike, union members narrowly approved a proposal that called for all union members to be eligible to work weekends. The plan called for setting up a schedule on which employees would work three days, be off two, work two, be off three, work two and so on.
This 3-2-2 plan was not favored by older workers, however, andsome younger workers were angered when the contract was ratified without all workers being made to work weekends.
When the vote was taken to ask the company to reconsider the schedules, an amendment was offered to also ask for a 50-cent-per-hour raise in each of the contract's first and second years and a 75-cent-per-hour increase in the third year. The new contract contains provisions for cost-of-living raises but no raises in base pay.
by CNB