The Rubber Manufacturers Association recognized 75 tire and rubber manufacturing facilities for improvements in worker health and safety with SHIP awards.
The RMA's Safety and Health Improvement Program (SHIP) was created in 1981.
"Worker safety is a top priority for RMA members and we believe it is important to recognize achievements in this area," says CEO and President Donald Shea. "The SHIP award is recognition of companies' superior achievement to protect their workers."
Two categories of awards are presented to companies that demonstrate workplace safety improvements, which are measured by the incidence rate for lost workday cases.
1. The "Excellence" category is for facilities that achieve an incidence rate that is 75% better than the average achieved by plants that provided data to RMA.
Domestic tire manufacturers receiving Excellence awards for their plants were Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire LLC (Aiken County, S.C.), Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. (Oliver Rubber Co., Asheboro, N.C.),
Michelin North America Inc. (Starr, S.C.) and Pirelli Tire North America Inc. (Rome, Ga.).
2. The "Improvement" award 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.
Domestic tire manufacturers receiving Improvement awards were Bridgestone/Firestone (Bloomington, Ill.), Continental Tire North America Inc. (Mount Vernon, Ill., and Bryan, Ohio), Cooper (Asheboro), Michelin (two plants in Lexington, S.C.; Spartanburg and Starr, S.C.; and Dothan, Ala.) and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Fayetteville, N.C.; Danville, Va.; and Lawton, Okla.). Goodyear also received an Improvement Award for its now closed Huntsville, Ala., facility.
Two hundred plants from 48 RMA member companies supplied data for the annual survey to determine the extent of workplace safety improvements. The data supplied to RMA is identical to information provided to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes injury and illness information on all industries.
