ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607090073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
note: Lede
After weeks of struggle, Rubatex Corp. got what it wanted Monday: a revised labor contract with provisions for mandatory overtime and changes in worker seniority. In return, many union workers at the company's Bedford plant got a guarantee - at least temporarily - that they will still have jobs.
"There are no immediate plans to move any jobs. ... We'll pull down the [layoff] notices," Rubatex spokesman Jery Kirschke said after members of United Steelworkers Local 240 had voted 344-124 to accept the company's proposed changes to their labor contract.
"Certainly, we're very pleased that the vote of the rank and file supports the position of the company," Kirschke said. "I think it's the first step in improving the Bedford facility."
He would not rule out the possibility of future layoffs at the plant, however.
Union workers turned down the proposed contract changes 221-219 last week, then called for another vote after the company followed through on its threat to lay off 287 workers. Rubatex said it would move more than a third of the Bedford plant's 820 jobs to a Rubatex plant in Colt, Ark., if the performance of the Bedford plant didn't improve and if the union didn't go along with the contract changes.
In interviews, most workers who said they'd voted for the company's revisions said they did so out of fear of losing their jobs.
"We had no choice," said Thomas Moon, who has worked at the plant just three years and was afraid he would be among the first laid off. "You got a family, you have to support them. How you going to make it in this world making $4 an hour at McDonald's? We make good money."
"I voted yes because I don't want to lose my job," said Sandie Arrington, a 20-year employee. "We don't get that much overtime now to even worry about it."
Roy Martin, a 37-year employee, said he voted for the company's changes because, when layoffs were announced last week, "I saw tears in too many people's eyes."
The current contract was to have expired in September 1997, but the new version will be in effect until Sept. 10, 1999. The changes it puts forth include:
Mandatory overtime. Right now, overtime isn't required. Under the revised contract, workers can be forced to work up to 20 extra hours on weekdays, plus three consecutive Saturdays and two Sundays each month. That could make for two 76-hour weeks a month.
Seniority. Workers now are laid off in order of plantwide seniority. The revisions open up more senior workers to short-term layoffs of up to three weeks.
Smaller wage increases than requested by the union. In negotiations, the union asked for an increase of more than 10 percent in wages and benefits. Under the new contract, workers will receive a 3.5 percent increase in September and a 3 percent annual raise for the following two years.
That means a worker now making $10.13 a hour - the plant's bottom rate - will make $10.49 in September, $10.80 next year and $11.12 in 1998. A worker making the top rate now - $14.07 an hour - will make $14.56 an hour in September, $15 next year, and $15.45 in 1998.
"They've been trying for three years or longer to break this union, and today they succeeded," said Jimmy Lacy, a 26-year-old press operator who has worked at the plant for seven years and voted against the company changes.
"These people fought not to have to pay for their own health insurance, not to work mandatory overtime. They gave up pay raises, they gave up a lot of things for that, but ... the company finally made us take it."
Lacy and several other workers think Rubatex is going to lay off workers anyway and mandatory overtime will make it easier for the company to do that. They say the company doesn't have enough orders to justify overtime with its current staff.
"Why pay three shifts time-and-a-half when you can work two for less money?" production worker Dennis Phillips said. "It's just the beginning of a bad thing. The union's gone now. ... We have no power."
"They're going to cut the jobs out," said Tony Phillips, Dennis's cousin. "Younger guys are going to get laid off, and they're going to work the hell out of the older ones who are left in there. ... The ones who get seniority are going to be working 12-hour days."
"They can work a few people a lot, still get rid of 250 jobs, and get the same production," said a plant worker who asked not to be named.
That worries Leonard Craig. A 57-year-old worker in the plant's finishing department, Craig works without air conditioning near heavy equipment that runs hot. "Remember last Monday, when it was so hot and humid?" he asked. "I came outside into the 95-degree weather to cool off."
Craig said he's afraid mandatory overtime will hurt families and mean less time for community involvement and volunteer work. But what he and other workers say they're most concerned about is the way they've been portrayed in the media.
Many people in Bedford haven't been able to understand why some workers are angry about the proposed changes or why they would vote against the company proposal when it meant certain layoffs.
"It's like this union is a bunch of villains, and the company and the city are the poor, innocent victims," Craig said. "But where would this community be without the union fighting for what we fought for? Would this community be better off if we made $7 an hour instead of $11 an hour?"
Union members also are concerned about offers to Rubatex from Bedford City Council for assistance in finding resources for employee training.
Many workers say plant management has been the cause of recent production problems, trying to get workers to double production on outdated machinery. The result in many cases, the workers say, has been poor-quality rubber and costly foul-ups.
But local union President Price Parker Jr., who has remained silent in recent weeks, said Monday he thinks the company is now committed to putting money into the Bedford plant that could possibly solve those problems.
Earlier this year, Rubatex President Frank Roland told workers that, if production improved, Rubatex would make $6 million in renovations and improvements to the Bedford plant.
Rubatex is a division of RBX Holdings Inc. of Roanoke County, which is owned by American Industrial Partners, a private investment company based in San Francisco and New York. The Bedford company
Rubatex makes closed-cell foam rubber used in products such as diving suits, pipe insulation and shoe soles. Finished products include insulated holders for aluminum cans.
LENGTH: Long : 123 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Leonard Craig, who hasby CNBworked for the company 31 years, says the union's not ``a bunch of
villains'' and Rubatex and the city ``the poor, innocent victims''
they've been portrayed. 2. Ricky Burnette just wants to get back to
work and see everything settle down. ``I'm used to hard work,'' he
said. color. KEYWORDS: JOBCHEK