USTMA: Hiring remains top concern in tire industry

WASHINGTON — Sometimes, progress can be gauged by what isn't top of mind for manufacturers. That appears to be the case with the domestic tire manufacturing industry, according to Anne Forristall Luke, president and CEO of the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA).

In working with the National Association of Manufacturers to evaluate the state of manufacturing, they found that having the ability to hire and retain a talented work force once again was the top concern for manufacturers — ahead of woes in the supply chain and also fluctuating raw material prices.

"I think the fact that we're seeing such great job numbers coming out of the economy and the fact that manufacturing leaders are saying that work force is once again their top issue is also a very strong indicator of the resilience of the manufacturing sector," Forristall Luke said. "And the tire industry is no exception to that."

The head of the Washington-based USTMA, which represents a dozen tire makers with production in the U.S., said there still are challenges with the supply chain but not like they were when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing.

Raw material prices remain a perennial concern of manufacturers.

"They are still there but on balance," Forristall Luke said. "I think we see the industry adapting very quickly to these challenges and making the internal innovations that are necessary, with an eye to the future."

To this end, the association's members are focused on development of renewable materials for use in tires, whether that be alternatives to natural rubber or utilizing recycled materials such as micronized rubber powder or recycled carbon black. Retreading remains a big piece to the puzzle as well, she added.

"There also remains a great deal of focus on innovation, both in the tire design and performance itself, as well as looking for the right partnerships to be able to lead the industry into the future around electric vehicles and connected mobility," she said. "We're seeing a lot of advancements there. We're very focused on the future, around digital, around EVs, around renewable materials."

Continuing to try to bridge the gap between the number of tires scrapped in the U.S. each year and how many of those end-of-life tires the recycled markets can utilize remains a priority, but one the USTMA will need help with.

"That's one area where we're really going to be focused on building partnerships up and down our value chain, and with other stakeholders outside of our value chain" such as non-governmental organizations, Forristall Luke said.

"We definitely see challenges that the industry has the responsibility to lead on, but we can't solve those alone. Our government relations staff is monitoring all 50 states for activity around scrap tire management programs. It's all done at the state level here in the United States, so we're always looking to help legislatures that are looking to improve their scrap tire management programs."

Forristall Luke said she is fascinated by the critical integration that links many of the key areas the USTMA and its members are working on. For example, tire materials that go into tires impact their safety features and how the tires perform. That, in turn, determines the effect tires have on the environment, which also is linked to tire road wear particles, which are connected to scrap tire market development.

"The synergy of that is beautiful," she said. "We, as an industry, can lead in coming up with mitigation solutions to TRWP. It's not the only thing coming off a road in a storm, so surface water management requires partnership between our industry and all the other key stakeholders, and lots of other industries as well."

With the areas being so interconnected, the USTMA CEO said this is a chance for the industry to live its commitment to sustainability.

"Does our industry face big challenges? Absolutely," Forristall Luke said. "But they are really opportunities for us to live that promise of sustainability and environmental stewardship, and also our promise of innovation and partnership with other key stakeholders.

"We really show up, and we've had many opportunities at both the association and member company level to demonstrate the courage of our conviction and work together with people to come up with concrete solutions to these problems," she said.

"And in the next few years I think you're going to see all this work deliver tremendous innovation from the industry for our consumers, for our society."

While the USTMA is a regional association focused on the U.S. — not unlike similar organizations in Europe, Japan and elsewhere — the tire industry is a global industry that needs to work together to solve issues of mutual concer, she said.

That's where the Tire Industry Project (TIP), a 17-year-old organization comprising 11 global tire producer, comes in.

"They are the independent research arm of our industry," Forristall Luke said. "In the past TIP and the global CEOs have been very focused on how does this organization evolve to make sure we're working on the most important and relevant scientific questions for our industry and our society."

And it also keeps the USTMA and the other tire industry associations duplicating courses of research that can be coordinated through TIP.

"You don't hear about the Tire Industry Project in the news all the time, because that's not what the organization is about," Forristall Luke said. "The organization is about truly advancing scientific knowledge and understanding of the issues that are critical to our industry."

Equally important, she added, is that TIP continues to evolve along with the tire industry, as conditions in the business are totally different than when the organization was founded.

"So how do they need to be thinking about the regulatory engagement needs around the world? How do they need to be thinking about stakeholder engagement needs around the world?" Luke said. "What are the issues now that we have to deal with that are completely different than they were a decade or two ago?"

When the Republican Party took control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections, it also changed the dynamics on how lobbying organizations such as the USTMA go about their jobs.

And with some of the divide even within that caucus, Forristall Luke said finding areas of compromise to make progress will be a challenge. It's also likely that the Republican-controlled House will focus more on investigation-type activities rather than legislation.

Given that environment, the USTMA has been focused on working with its Congressional Tire Caucus, a bipartisan organization of members of Congress that focuses on issues that are important to the U.S. tire manufacturing industry.

"We are continuing to develop the relationships with our manufacturing footprint legislators to make sure they know how important some of this work is to us," Luke said, "particularly in implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act."

Those initiatives have resources available for research in some of these key sustainable infrastructure technologies such as rubber modified asphalt and tire derived aggregate.

The infrastructure bill is in implementation mode now, she said, with Commerce and Transportation departments issuing grants to advance innovative technologies, many of which are focused on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

"That's where you can really see opportunities for sustainable infrastructure technologies that are good markets for scrap tires," Forristall Luke said.

"... We have our eye on what's happening in the Congress and in the administration, particularly with regards to implementation of those laws we worked so hard on in the last Congress."

And with a split federal government, she said the USTMA expects a continuation of a trend dating back to the start of the Trump Administration, where state governments have been more activist because they see the need to make things happen that won't get done at the federal level.

Forristall Luke said the association is monitoring all 50 states, but engaged in a handful, including Alaska, California, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, South Carolina and Washington,It is with this activity the USTMA can determine where best it can be constructive with its efforts with key state governments, both at the legislative and regulatory levels.