RMA honors tire manufacturers for safety improvements

March 2, 2007

The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) has honored more than 60 companies, including a number of tiremakers, for improving worker health and safety at their facilities.

"The RMA’s Safety and Health Improvement Program (SHIP), created in 1981, recognizes member companies that achieve significant enhancements in worker health and safety with awards," say RMA officials. "The SHIP awards encourage and reward a company’s demonstrated commitment to worker health and safety."

Two categories of awards are presented to companies that demonstrate workplace safety improvements, which are measured by the incidence rate for lost workday cases:

* the "Excellence" category, which is for facilities that achieve an incidence rate that is 75% better than the average achieved by plants that provided data to RMA;

* the "Improvement" award, which is for plants that achieve an incidence rate that is both 10% better than its rate in the previous year and the same or better than the RMA average incidence rate.

Tire manufacturer recipients include Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire LLC, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Michelin North America Inc. and Pirelli Tire North America Inc.