Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 7, 1995                   TAG: 9504080029
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

Members of the Martinsville Nylon Employees Council, an unofficial union at DuPont's Martinsville nylon plant, voted 37-5 Thursday to affiliate with the United Mine Workers of America.

Ballots were cast only by dues-paying Nylon Employees Council members, who represent less than one-tenth of the plant's 550-employee work force.

Long the plant's in-house union, the Nylon Employees Council agreed to step aside if the UMW tried to organize the workers. But the workers voted in November for a new home-grown union, the Martinsville DuPont Employees Union. After its loss, the UMW tried unsuccessfully to have the election reversed.

The Nylon Employees Council stepped back into the limelight and announced Thursday's affiliation vote.

The union, reforming as a local of the UMW, sees its role as monitoring activities at the plant, said president Clinton Jennings. In three years, it will try to unseat the DuPont Employees Union, which was certified by the National Labor Relations Board in March, he said.

Until then, he said, it would function as the plant's "minority union" and have no bargaining rights.

The vote came the same day the DuPont Employees Union held its second bargaining session with DuPont. President Billy Buchanan said the two sides plan to negotiate weekly toward a contract and resolution of other matters.

- JEFF STURGEON

Southwest plants lead in health care

MARION - Eight Southwest Virginia localities lead the state in the number of industries offering health promotion programs for their employees.

A survey shows that nearly 77 percent of the industries in the counties of Wythe, Bland, Carroll, Grayson, Washington and Smyth and cities of Galax and Bristol offer injury prevention or first aid programs. Industries in that region, the Mount Rogers Health District, also were more likely to offer blood pressure, blood sugar and cancer screenings. And 45 percent of them offered flu shots to their employees.

The survey was made nearly a year ago by the Virginia Department of Health and the University of Virginia Center for Survey Research. It covered more than 1,000 work sites in five regions of the state.

A quarter of the industries in the Mount Rogers region had established employee "wellness committees" to plan health promotion programs. Thirty-five percent of them had worked with the Health Department in the planning.

- Staff report

Briefly ...

American Dance Centers will open Saturday at 2261 Colonial Ave. in Towers Shopping Center, Roanoke. The center, specializing in ballroom, Latin and country-western dance instruction, has operated for 10 years in the Roanoke area as part of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio chain. The local operation is owned by Cobbow Dance Inc., of which Kenneth and Shirley Kinchen are principals.

The Plaza of Roanoke-Salem, 4800 Melrose Ave., Roanoke, has leased 22,638 square feet to Office Outlet, a company selling used office equipment and furniture, and 3,577 square feet to Plaza Service Center, an auto repair shop. Copty and Co. represented Office Outlet in the transaction. Metropolitan Asset Management Inc., manager of the center, represented Plaza Service Center and the center's owner, the Federal Deposit Insurance Co. as received for Madison National Bank.