ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9607010045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
UNION MEMBERS will vote on the rubber company's final contract offer. The outcome could force layoffs.
Union members at Rubatex Corp. - many angry and resentful from years of battling company management - will gather at Bedford Middle School on Sunday to vote the company's final contract offer.
The vote's outcome most likely will decide if the rubber manufacturer will move part of its operations to Arkansas, eliminating almost 300 jobs - more than a third of the plant's 820 positions.
"We sincerely hope all employees recognize the juncture we are at," said company spokesman Jery Kirschke, reading from a prepared statement. "It would be devastating for Rubatex, its employees and the community if the company was forced to move operations out of Bedford. We have a technically competent and loyal work force with long service. ... The vote they cast is a vote for the future of the Bedford facility."
Kirschke declined to give any details of the company's offer, which deals with issues such as seniority, overtime, and wage/benefit increases.
United Steel Workers Local 240 Vice President Rucker Witcher and the local's president, Price Parker Jr., both Rubatex employees, refused comment until after Sunday's vote.
However, Rubatex workers who left the factory's gates after the 3 p.m. shift change Friday were mostly bitter and contemptuous of the management that they said is coercing them into an unfair labor contract with threats of layoffs.
"I'm going to vote `No'" to the company's offer, said one worker, who, like most, declined to give his name. "Nobody wants to see anybody lose their job, but if you work for nothing and just take what they give you, you might as well not have a job."
His co-worker said, "They haven't offered us anything, and they're trying to put all the blame on the people who work here. ... Management doesn'tTHIS READ "DON'T KNOW NOTHING" BEFORE, I CHANGED IT TO DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING
In a memo addressed to the plant's 611 union workers last week, Bedford plant manager Steve Turner said that Rubatex was prepared to move part of the plant's operations and 287 jobs to another company plant in Colt, Ark., if worker performance was not improved and a contract agreement could not be reached with the union. Production jobs at Rubatex reportedly pay about $14 an hour.
"We've been boxed in," Charles Mallory Jr., a Rubatex employee and former union vice president, said. "The company is leaving us not much of a choice. We're being punished for the mistakes our upper management has made in the past."
Even though workers said Friday that they didn't yet know the details of the company's latest contract offer, most expressed fears that it would require mandatory overtime and weekend work, even for workers who have seniority.
"They're asking for the impossible," said one 27-year veteran who also refused to give his name. "They're asking for our lives. We don't mind working for them, but we don't want them to own us."
That same employee said the company's threat of moving jobs to Arkansas if plant performance doesn't improve is nothing new. He said it was first mentioned at a meeting in January.
"It's six months later and we're still living with this threat - `If y'all don't do this, we're going to move, if y'all do this, we're going to move.'
"It's to the point a lot of us don't care if they do anymore. We're fed up to the max."
Most also were afraid that if the company moved some of the Bedford operations, the rest would soon follow. "I think if they start moving, they're going to move the whole plant eventually," a worker said.
That could have a big impact on Bedford, where Rubatex is the city's largest employer and also a major consumer of city services such as electricity.
There have been two major strikes and more than 90 layoffs at the Bedford plant in the last five years.
Rubatex is owned by RBX Holdings Inc. of Roanoke County and employs about 1,500 workers at plants in Colt, Ark.; Conover, NC; and Bedford. RBX is owned by American Industrial Partners, an investment company based in San Francisco and New York.
Rubatex produces a closed-cell foam rubber from synthetic rubber, vinyl and plastics. The foam-rubber product, which contains thousands of nitrogen-filled cells, is used for a variety of applications, from diving wet suits and other sports products to pipe insulation and shoe soles.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB