Cooper Tire employees return with safety measures in place
After a 33 day temporary furlough due to COVID19, Cooper Tire employees returned to work last week. Much had changed.
“There are many safety measures in place,” said Kerry Halter, president of United Steel Workers Local 752L, which represents Texarkana Cooper employees. “Business isn’t really as usual because some of the safety measures have changed some processes so we are adapting to the changes while we navigate through this process while trying to comply with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) suggested guidelines.”
Those guidelines include a comprehensive set of procedures that involve employee disclosures, increased cleaning and disinfecting of equipment, social distancing
and physical barriers, visitor restrictions, and other measures. Similar procedures have been effective at Cooper’s two plants in China that reopened and began ramping up production in mid-February, according to company officials in Findley, Ohio.
Employees of the Texarkana plant received a copy of those guidelines in the mail from plant manager Tommy Cullins, along with a disclosure form they were required to fill out before coming back to work. Attempts to reach a plant management representative were unsuccessful.
According to David Beard, USW District 1 President and member of both the Texas and Arkansas American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations executive boards, these safety measures are comparable with other guidelines used in factories throughout the United States.
“These are unprecedented times,” he said. “This is something we’ve never seen before. The AFL-CIO has never seen it in the U.S., going back to their inception in the 1950s.”
Beard has been a union member for 30 years and President of the Central Labor Council in Texarkana since 2007.
The AFL-CIO is working to protect the health and safety of all workers, including those on the front lines of this public health emergency, its website says. This includes training, educating and equipped its members with the tools to be safe on the job.
The organization sees itself as a watchdog to ensure employers “implement comprehensive plans to protect front-line workers and reduce the risk of exposure to the general public,”
The AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 55 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million active and retired workers.
“Texas had 497,000 union members in 2019. In addition to these members, another 145,000 wage and salary workers in Texas were represented by a union on their main job or covered by an employee association or contract while not being union members,” Beard said. “The number of union members in Arkansas was an estimated 62,000 in 2019.”
First Quarter Financials
On Thursday, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (NYSE: CTB) reported a first quarter net loss of $12 million, or diluted loss per share of $0.23, compared with net income of $7 million, or $0.14 diluted earnings per share, for the same period last year, according to a company press release.
Company says first quarter highlights include:
n Unit volume decreased 15.8% compared to the first quarter of 2019.
n Net sales decreased 14.1% to $532 million.
n Operating loss was $6 million, or 1.2%t of net sales, compared to operating profit of $26 million, or
4.3% of net sales, in 2019. n Operating results include approximately $11 million of restructuring charges related to the transition at
the company’s now wholly owned Mexico manufacturing facility.
n At the end of the first quarter, Cooper had $433 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents compared with $212 million in 2019. To maximize financial flexibility, the company drew down $270 million on its revolving credit facilities during the quarter.
“Cooper’s priorities during this unprecedented time have continued to be the health and safety of our employees, responsibilities to our broader communities, and commitments to our customers as well as all other key stakeholders. I am exceedingly proud of how Cooper employees around the globe, driven by our purpose, mission and values, have risen to the challenges,” said Cooper President & Chief Executive Officer Brad Hughes …
“… Overall, we believe Cooper is in a good position to benefit when the economy recovers. Over the past two years, we have transformed our company into a consumer driven organization with Cooper products now more available where consumers want to buy tires. … Our research suggests consumer confidence in the Cooper brand is growing, and we believe that we stand to be a consumer tire partner of choice.”