Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501230014
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Anderson, a 29-year-old Salem minister, is among 175 employees at the company's Salem tire plant who have been adjusting to working weekends. For Anderson, it has been a struggle to get to church.
The company announced last year it needed to run the plant continuously, even if it meant disrupting workers' personal lives.
The reshuffling of schedules, long a source of friction between the United Rubber Workers union and management, came shortly after a three-year contract was approved 419-297 on Oct. 5 by union members .
A nearly 12-week strike preceded the agreement. It was marked by proposals, counterproposals and strife. At one point, a judge ordered pickets to keep at least 500 feet from the plant and limited their number to four at each of the plant's gates.
In the three months that have passed, the two sides have not made peace.
"There's going to be upheaval until 1997," said Wayne Friend, president of United Rubber Workers Local 1023 at the plant. "Nobody, and myself included because I voted against it, is totally satisfied with the contract."
But despite the union voicing grievances, pleased company officials believe the plant at 1500 Indiana St. will produce a record 7 million tires this year. That's up from 4.3 million last year and 5 million 1993. And that bodes well for Yokohama and the more than 825 jobs it provides here.
In other parts of the country, rubber workers are engaged in equally bitter battles with other major tire manufacturers. Strikers have been replaced in part for refusing to work weekends, a move that has drawn the attention of President Clinton.
For its part, the company said it is satisfied with the new contract.
"To be competitive in the U.S. marketplace, seven-day operation is largely required and that's what the contract has enabled us to do," said spokesman Russell Chick. "We are very pleased with the progress we are making."
Chick added: "We have had only five people leave the company as a result of being assigned to the weekend schedule."
In that time, 55 employees have been hired, he said.
Yokohama shifted to weekend work those it had hired since Jan. 1, 1984. Those with more seniority have weekends off or work 24 Saturdays in addition to weekdays.
But for three years the plant had been running at less than full speed on weekends, staffed in large part by about 150 employees hired since 1991. These workers had agreed when they were hired to work weekends. Those recently assigned to weekends - who make it possible to run the plant full-steam, seven days a week - had no choice and were not hired under those conditions.
As it stands, nearly half of the work force is eligible to be placed on weekend duty and the company gradually has called on them.
Few people illustrate the disruption the weekend assignment causes employees better than Anderson, who was hired in 1988.
He previously worked from midnight until 8 a.m. weekdays and on some Saturdays, which left him free Sunday to help minister to a congregation of 75 people at God's Church of Deliverance and Power in Salem. He volunteers as associate pastor, youth director and organist.
A portion of his new shift - midnight to noon Sundays - overlaps with 10 a.m. church services. Thus far, he had made it to church by scheduling himself for vacation each Sunday. But he will use up his remaining paid leave before summer. He and company officials were discussing a solution to the problem last week.
"It's really bad, because I'm dedicated to serving God more than anything," said Anderson, who voted against the labor contract. While Anderson, a husband and father with a second child on the way, is not ready to quit his job with Yokohama, he vowed to be there for his congregation "no matter what I have to do."
Another drawback to weekend duty, workers said, is the length of each shift. Workers are clocked-in from midnight to noon or noon to midnight both Saturdays and Sundays and work two or three 8-hour weekday shifts.
"You feel like you run a marathon. It [hurts] my legs, my knees, my arms," said tire builder Fred Hutchins, 45, of Hardy.
Hutchins, a 20-year employee, elected to work weekends because his wife, Judy, who was hired in 1984, was forced to do so by the contract. The only alternative she had was a graveyard shift she disliked even more. They work side-by-side.
"On your days off, you do a lot of sleeping," she said. Doses of aspirin two or three times per shift help her cope with aches aggravated by the long hours, she said.
The couple was accustomed to working five weekdays from 4 p.m. to midnight. They handled 190 tires per shift, a figure that has grown to about 300, he said.
"There's got to be a better way," Fred Hutchins said.
To be sure, the company had many options for staffing the plant. Experts consulted by Goodyear Rubber and Tire Co., which operates a plant in Danville, said some 8,000 possible around-the-clock work schedules exist, according to Goodyear spokesman Keith Price.
Union leaders and management at an Oklahoma Goodyear facility scanned the list and chose a schedule that provides workers with one full week off per month.
Yokohama officials said they devised the Salem plant's schedule to inconvenience the fewest workers. Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however. Some younger workers still are angry that the contract was ratified without all workers being made to work weekends.
At one point during the Salem strike, union members narrowly voted to recommend that everyone pull weekend duty. The plan called for setting up a schedule on which employees would work three days, be off two, work two, be off three and so on.
While some reportedly favor weekend shifts because time off comes in bunches of two and three days, many dislike the fact that they do not earn overtime for the final four hours of each 12-hour shift. Under contract terms, workers receive straight time; the average wage is $17.40 an hour.
The company said it feels for the workers but needed to make changes to compete with other tire manufacturers for its share of the growing tire market. Yokohama Tire Corp. is owned by Tokyo-based Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd., which was ranked seventh globally in tire revenue in 1993, the most recent year for which data is available.
Recent years were marked by declining profits and sales at the company, and, most recently, a $1.8million loss in 1993. Figures for 1994 have not been reported.
Changes at Salem may have been foreshadowed by remarks by company executives in the firm's 1993 annual report. Chairman of the Board Kazuo Motoyama and President Seiji Hagiwara pledged "relentless attention" to raising efficiency. A plant running nonstop is more productive, the theory goes, because machines do not sit idle.
Yokohama acquired the Salem facility in 1989 when it bought Mohawk Rubber Co. of Akron, Ohio. Since then it has installed $120 million worth of equipment to enhance production of radial tires for cars and light trucks. By executing plans to run it full-bore, Yokohama officials made it the last company tire plant to adopt such a schedule.
Yokohama is not alone. Most tire makers have switched to seven-day operation in recent years or plan to do so, analysts said.
Employees of Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., who have struck five plants, walked off the job in part because of a company proposal to operate the plants continuously.
Closer to home, the 2,100 employees at Goodyear's Danville plant have been asked to suggest ways to staff that plant continuously, said Goodyear spokesman Keith Price.
"If there was ever a potential for that type of schedule, it's now," said Dan Mustico, assistant manager of information and statistics at the Rubber Manufacturers Association.
Tire sales hit new highs last year and will rise further this year, the association has said.
Tire workers have generally told their bosses they don't want to work weekends. But management has increasingly responded that such changes may be the only way to keep the company from closing or being swallowed by a competitor, according to a tire industry analyst.
Then there is the risk that workers who are inflexible will be replaced while on strike. Friend, the Salem union president, said he feared this. Bridgestone/Firestone recently said it has replaced a portion of its striking workers.
The counterweight of public opinion can swing against such firms, however. President Clinton publicly scolded Bridgestone/Firestone executives, saying on Jan. 15 that the company had defied "our tradition of peaceful collective bargaining" by hiring replacements while refusing to negotiate further.
So, while the company's demands are in keeping with industry trends and workers seemed to have little choice but to adapt, the question of how well the new arrangement will work may not be known until this year's tire production and, some suggest, employee turnover, are totaled.
And make no mistake about it, some employees are happy, even though they're mixing rubber or shaping tires on Saturday night.
"If you're making $18 an hour and overtime is liberal, you really can't complain about what kind of shift you're working," said weekend employee Scott Shaver, 33, of Salem.
by CNB