ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Lede
Rubatex Corp. said Sunday it will cut nearly 300 jobs, about one-third of its Bedford work force, after its employee union balked at company demands for concessions.
Rubatex will lay off 287 of 820 employees and move part of the plant's operation to Arkansas, spokesman Jery Kirschke said.
The decision was triggered by a rejection of the company's latest contract offer by two votes of more than 400 cast.
From inside the union's closed meeting came a cheer.
But a Bedford City Council member called the development "a disaster."
On June 20, Rubatex executives told employees of the possibility of a cutback in local operations and jobs to address performance problems at the long-running Bedford plant, which produces foam rubber for a variety of goods such as shoes, hoses and wet suits.
As an alternative, Kirschke said, the company offered to invest $6 million in new equipment and other improvements. But it told the union, United Steelworkers Local 240, that the company would need concessions.
The union agreed to hear the company's proposal as a possible amendment to an existing contract good through September 1997. Upset at the progress of those talks, however, the company warned employees it would transfer rubber extrusion operations out of the plant if concessions were not granted. After more talks, the company gave the union its last offer.
In the balloting at Bedford Middle School, the vote was 221-219 to reject it.
The vote scuttled the plan for new equipment and left the company no choice but to curtail local operations, Kirschke said.
"The company is now forced to move operations to a more profitable plant," said Kirschke, who described the company's reaction as one of "major disappointment."
The affected operations will shift to Colt, Ark., where Rubatex's parent, Roanoke County-based RBX Holdings Inc., has had operations since it bought a plant there in early 1995.
Some Bedford employees have said they feared such a cutback will lead to the eventual shutdown of the Bedford factory, where 533 employees still have jobs. Kirschke would not elaborate on Rubatex's plans. Outside Bedford, Rubatex employs about 700 people at its headquarters and in Conover, N.C., and Colt.
Workers knew Sunday's balloting was a vote to save or give up jobs. But some are resentful after years of battling management. There have been two strikes in five years and more than 100 people have been laid off in the past year.
One worker who opposed the contract said his vote had nothing to do with financial provisions of the offer.
"Rubatex is tampering with worker rights," said Grey Martin, who performs machinery maintenance. "Mandatory overtime. The threat of job loss. All those things don't appeal to me."
Under the overtime rule in the rejected contract, for example, "they can tell you within two hours that you have to work overtime. Not a day ahead. Not a week ahead."
Martin is 60 and a 39-year employee - and typical of the group that stood against the contract, according to a co-worker. Kim Fitzgerald, a relatively new employee who is on temporary layoff, said longtime workers' jobs are safest because newcomers are first in line to be cut.
Fitzgerald said living with the company's conditions would have been better than being jobless.
"I have bills to pay," she said. "The man that owns the company now is going to do what he wants to do ... Bedford is going to be a ghost town if Rubatex goes out of here."
As another employee walked to his car, he muttered: "People aren't sticking together worth a darn." He paced away and soon disappeared with the other union members and union management, who tried to leave school grounds with such haste that their cars and trucks were backed up at the exit.
Bedford City Council member Robert Wandrei said he doubts the region can attract nearly 300 new jobs with employers that pay as well as Rubatex, where several workers estimated the average hourly production wage at $11.50.
"I think this is a disaster," Wandrei said. "I would hope that, given the closeness of the vote, there might be some reconsideration" by the union.
Lewis Wheeler, secretary of Local 240 said: "The people have a choice to vote which way they want to vote. This is the way they chose." He refused further questions; the president of the union left the school without speaking to reporters.
Wandrei said he understands that the union had more clout with former owners of the company than with present ownership, American Industrial Partners, a private investment company based in San Francisco and New York. American Industrial Partners, he said, "has the financial backing to resist the pressure from the union, and they're going to go where they can be assured of getting a decent return."
"Business," he added, "is going to go where it's wanted."
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Union workers leave Bedford Middleby CNBSchool on Sunday after hearing the results of the vote. 2. ERIC
BRADY/Staff. Union president Price Parker Jr. (left) and other union
officers get ready to announce the outcome of the balloting. (Ran in
New River Valley edition only). color. KEYWORDS: JOBCHEK