ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997 TAG: 9703310005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EDDIE ROBTISON
WHEN YOU make a comparison between manufacturers, please compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges (Feb. 14 Business section article on Yokohama, ``Owners put pressure on tire plant'').
If you had checked the wages at Goodyear in Danville, you would see that we're right in line with Virginia's only other tire manufacturer. No matter what other local manufacturers' costs may be, we compete with other tire companies.
During the past six years, we at Yokohama have gone through considerable change:
When the company asked for a seven-day work week to increase productivity and stay competitive, to reduce downtime and overtime, and to reduce idle machinery, we compromised and came up with a shift.
When every employee was asked to give up a week's vacation, to be designated by the company to allow for necessary maintenance and add new equipment, we compromised and agreed to a week's shutdown.
When inventory needed to be drastically controlled and costly warehouse space needed to be reduced to consolidate distribution from Atlanta, some of our brothers and sisters lost their jobs.
When the company added more modern equipment to increase efficiency and greatly reduce scrap, this reduced its material costs, and was paid for by a reduced work force.
When the company needed to increase production even more, we allowed it to increase the tire-building rates, through proper time studies, which increased its profits per tire.
With all this, it's hard to imagine a company crying hard times and blaming the union for a lack of profits when local tire distributors are having to wait weeks for light-truck tires, and tire machines and curing presses on each shift are just waiting to make tires.
It seems the lack of profits in the United States plant isn't because of union employees' greed or lack of concern for Yokohama's future, but because of management's decision to make the more profitable tires in Japan. Also, when the company's president says the company may close in two years, I believe that present and potential customers will think twice about future contracts with Yokohama.
With every employee pushing hard for better quality and ISO 9000 certification to qualify Yokohama to produce original equipment tires for any new car or truck manufactured in the United States (which we're currently not certified to do), we hope to bring back jobs and increase profits. The company president's statement hurts current profits and doesn't encourage future business.
Did you know that an hourly tire worker in Japan makes more money per year than his counterpart in the United States? If you doubt this, get on the Internet, find a friend in Tokyo who happens to work for Bearings Securities. You can also find interesting quarterly and annual reports.
It took Yokohama seven years to get us where we are today. I feel certain that if the company will allow production to catch up with the expense of modernizing the plant, profits will come without having to point fingers at fellow team members in the process.
Eddie Robtison of Vinton is president of United Steelworkers Local 1023 in Roanoke.
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