The Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) recently recognized 55 tire and rubber manufacturing facilities for improvements in worker health and safety.
Its Safety and Health Improvement Program (SHIP), created in 1981, recognizes RMA member companies that achieve "significant enhancements" in worker health and safety -- measured by the incidence rate for lost workday cases -- with awards.
There are two categories: "Excellence" for facilities that achieve an incidence rate that is 75% better than the average achieved by plants that provided data to RMA; and “Improvement” 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.
Winners by plant category in the tire sector include the following (as listed by the RMA).
Excellence Awards
Bridgestone Americas Manufacturing Group: Aiken County, S.C.;
Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions: Griffin, Ga., Long Beach, Calif., and Oxford, N.C.;
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.: Stockbridge, Ga.;
Michelin North America: Dothan, Ala.
Improvement Awards
Bridgestone Americas Manufacturing Group: Bloomington, Ill., Des Moines, Iowa, and La Vergne, Tenn.;
Bridgestone Americas Tube Business: Russellville, Ark.;
Continental Tire North America: Mount Vernon, Ill.;
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.: Findlay, Ohio;
Michelin North America: Covington, Ga., Sandy Springs, S.C., Spartanburg, S.C., and Starr, S.C.;
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.: Fayetteville, N.C., Gadsden, Ala., Kingman, Ariz., and Social Circle, Ga.
The other sectors represented were industrial supplier, supplier, and engineered products group.
The annual survey includes data from 113 plants from 28 RMA member companies. It is identical to information provided to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes injury and illness information on all industries.
For more information, visit www.rma.org.
