ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
Rubatex Corp. will lay off 46 workers at its Bedford plant today, making a total of 140 layoffs - 17 percent of the company's workers - in the last three weeks.
"The reason is just a temporary sag in business," said Mark Dobbins, Rubatex's spokesman and vice president of human resources. "We're in the kind of business that has some seasonal fluctuation, and from time to time we have adjustments up and down."
Dobbins called the layoffs "regrettable" and said the company hopes that workers can return to their jobs at the foam rubber manufacturing plant within a few weeks, when orders are expected to increase. Today's layoffs will leave the plant with 680 employees.
Losing their jobs are workers in the plant's mill and mix areas, as well as extrusion workers in Rubatex's Waltex division. The affected employees are among the plant's 557 hourly workers, whose salaries range from $10.50 to $14.50 an hour.
Some don't expect to get their jobs back soon.
"I asked somebody today when they thought I might be back. They say it's probably going to be one week, but I don't think so, I really don't. I think they're just downsizing, little bit by little bit," said one mill room employee, who asked that his name not be printed.
Rubatex makes closed-cell foam rubber used in products such as diving suits, pipe insulation and shoe soles. Its finished products include insulated holders for aluminum cans.
The layoffs come about six months after Rubatex threatened to lay off 287 workers at the Bedford plant unless United Steelworkers Union members agreed to changes in their labor contract.
The union members, most of whom said they acted out of fear for their jobs, voted in favor of the changes, which included mandatory overtime and provisions that made senior workers vulnerable to short-term layoffs.
"They promised they were not going to let people go if we went along with their contract, and look at what they're doing now," the mill room worker said.
He said the plant's future in Bedford is no more secure now than it was a year ago, citing a Jan.31 internal memo from plant manager Steve Turner. In the statement, Turner accused workers in the plant's mill room of sabotaging rubber orders and suggested that Rubatex may move its mixing operations to another plant if it continued.
"To take this step would be the beginning of the end of the Bedford plant," Turner wrote. "And I'm sure that the future plans to upgrade and improve, which is our long-term security, would cease."
However, Dobbins said the memo was intended as a call for workers to report sabotage, not a threat to close the plant or cancel the company's promised $6million upgrade in Bedford.
Rubatex is prepared to mix its rubber at plants in other states if the problems continue, but it would return the mixing operation to Bedford after the problem was resolved, Dobbins said.
Turner said two orders of stock rubber for major customers were contaminated when large quantities of objects, including paper clips, were added to the rubber mix.
Employees in the area deny tampering with the orders.
"I think it's a bunch of bull, and I don't think nobody in the mill room would jeopardize their job by doing that," the worker said.
Rubatex has had several management changes in recent months. Dobbins, who was a vice president of human resources for Halstead Corp., a division of Rubatex's parent company, joined Rubatex two months ago, replacing Jery Kirschke, who left the company. The plant also has a new personnel manager.
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.
RBX, a privately owned company, posted losses of $3.8million for the first half of 1996, citing low company sales and operating problems at the Bedford plant.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: color. Graphic: Chart by staff: Rubatex Corp. color.by CNBLogo. color. KEYWORDS: JOBCHEK