Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995 TAG: 9511070053
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Last year, the plant started doing extra work for Goodyear's North American tire division, which allowed the company to go from 52 to 97 employees, Branch Manager Mark Booth said. The Goodyear tire division announced Nov. 1 that it no longer needed Brad Ragan's Radford facilities because it will do the rubber mixing at a new facility, Booth said. Some of the rubber for this division went to Danville, Va.
Brad Ragan Inc. is a Charlotte, N.C.-based tire retailer and retreaded tire producer.
"We were hoping that we would continue longer than we did but we knew somewhere down the line that they'd [Goodyear] put it in their own shops," Booth said.
The plant mixes rubber and chemicals into a compound used to make rubber products and retread tires for off-road vehicles such as bulldozers.
The layoff, which was announced Monday morning, was effective immediately and those 43 workers were sent home. They will be eligible to be called back to work during the next 18 months if extra help is needed, Booth said.
Layoffs were based on seniority. The laid-off workers are not being offered a severance package "at this time," Booth said.
Brad Ragan Inc. is an independent corporation but Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., based in Akron, Ohio, owns 74 percent of the company, said Ron Rumble, vice president and general manager for the company's commercial division.
The plant in Radford is Brad Ragan Inc.'s only mixing facility. The corporation, which employs 1,600 people, has 124 retail stores - including three in Roanoke - and 17 retread tire plants for trucks and off-road vehicles. One of those retread plants is in Salem.
"This layoff does not affect that," Rumble said. "That continues."
by CNB