SEBRING, Fla. (March 23, 2004) — Seventy-seven tire and rubber manufacturing facilities received awards for improving worker health and safety, distributed by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) at its annual meeting earlier this month in Henderson, Nev.
The Safety and Health Improvement Program (SHIP) was created in 1981 to encourage and recognize member companies that achieved significant enhancements in worker 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 is for facilities that achieve an incidence rate that is 75 percent better than the average achieved by plants submitting data to RMA.
Tire companies that had plants ranked in the excellence category included: Bridgestone/Firestone, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., Goodyear, Michelin North America Inc. and Pirelli Tire North America Inc. Tire makers that had plants place in the improvement category included: Bridgestone/Firestone, Continental Tire North America Inc., Cooper, Goodyear and Michelin, according to the RMA.