Christopher Calnan

The manager of the Volvo Trucks North America plant in Dublin said Tuesday that the company seriously considered moving the plant to Mexico during a labor union dispute this year.

Plant manager Tom Murphy told the Blacksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce that Volvo wouldn’t have been able to start its $ 148 million expansion project without concessions by the United Auto Workers and a $ 60 million incentive package by the state.

Murphy declined to explain his statements after the chamber speech, in which he gave a slide presentation about the plant. However, during the speech he said he visited two manufacturing plants in Mexico to investigate the feasibility of moving the Dublin plant, the New River Valley’s second-largest employer.

Foundry worker David Gravely knew he was going to die when he saw the upper portion of a 900-pound press closing in on him.

The 29-year-old New River Castings Co. worker had just one thought – he’d never see his wife and children again. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sound of his hard hat cracking under the press’ pressure.

Gravely blacked out as the press came down on his head, broke two of his ribs, punctured both lungs and crushed his spine. He awoke nine days later with a concussion and little feeling in his left leg, but a very lucky man.

“I really don’t want to see a machine again,” he said from his bed at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. “That’s the way it’s going to be for a long time.”

Gravely’s June 13 accident was as freakish and terrifying as they come.

The state Department of Labor and Industry is investigating an accident in which a Pulaski man was crushed in a 900-pound press at New River Castings Co. last week.

David Gravely, a 28-year-old press operator, is now listed in good condition at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville after a press closed on him during a power outage, according to Edward Ramsey, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 9336.

The accident happened June 13 when the top half of the press Gravely was cleaning lost power because of a lightning storm. The machine lacked a device to keep it open without its main power source and crushed the worker, Ramsey said.

“They didn’t have a blockout or lockout on it to hold it in place,” he said.

The company has since placed such safety devices on its presses. But it’s too little, too late for Gravely, Ramsey said.

“It’s something that happened that shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “All of them have them on now, but that’s like shutting the barn door after the horse is out.”

Magnox Pulaski Inc. is laying off 18 workers because of a slump in the Asian and Russian economies, company officials said Thursday.

Thirteen hourly workers and five salaried workers were notified Thursday morning, according to Magnox attorney Deborah Dobbins. The company hasn’t determined if the layoffs will be permanent or temporary.

“We have no way of knowing at this time,” Dobbins said. “It depends on what happens in the market and the economy.”

The Pulaski company, which now has 99 workers, makes magnetic oxides for use in the production of video, audio and computer tapes. It exports about 60 percent of its product.

After threats by Volvo Trucks North America to scuttle a $148 million expansion project, members of the United Auto Workers ratified a new contract Thursday, three days before the company’s deadline.

UAW Local 2069 President John Sayers said the threat was a factor in the vote.

“It put pressure on us, and it was designed to put pressure on us,” he said.

Union members voted 1,253-562 for the six-year contract, which will start new employees at 30 percent less than base pay and require an eight-month waiting period for health insurance.

Eleven days earlier, the union rejected a similar contract, but Volvo made a counteroffer that shortened the waiting period for new workers’ health benefits by two months while the union gave up an allowance for safety shoes worth about $300,000 over the life of the contract.

Sayers said the union recommended that workers ratify the new contract. The UAW’s former contract was due to expire in March 2000.

Volvo had threatened to reject a $54.2 million state incentive package to build the expansion and move part or all of the plant if workers didn’t accept a contract by Sunday.

“I don’t know what we’d have done without this,” said Charles Cook, a member of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors who also is president of Pulaski Encouraging Progress, a local economic development organization.

“It’s going to put us on the map for the state. It’ll put us on the map for the state and the nation, if Volvo goes through with the merchandising plan that they have,” he said.

Volvo Trucks of North America won’t expand its plant here and may move if the United Auto Workers doesn’t sign a new contract by the end of the month, Volvo officials said Monday.

“The company will pursue other options to increase capacity,” spokesman Phil Romba said. It would consider other U.S. locations and Mexico, he said.

Romba declined to say whether the entire plant would move or just the expansion project.

Hourly union workers rejected a contract Sunday that called for a 30 percent pay cut and a different health insurance plan for new workers. The current contract expires in March 2000.

Rejection of the contract came four days after Gov. Jim Gilmore announced that plant officials were planning a $148 million expansion that would create another 1,277 jobs. He said the state would provide Volvo with a $ 50 million incentive package to complete the expansion.

John Sayers, president of UAW Local 2069, said Volvo’s deadline announcement wasn’t totally unexpected.

“We knew it was a possibility,” he said. “Now that it’s come out, we’ll have to deal with it.”

Two days before Volvo plant workers are set to vote on a new contract, the president and CEO of Volvo Trucks North America said the company would consider moving part or all of its plant if the contract is rejected.

Volvo has revised the policy on new employees’ health insurance in its proposed contract; otherwise, it is similar to the pact United Auto Workers members rejected 10 days ago.

In the first public statement yet by Volvo’s top management, Marc Gustafson said, “If we don’t have an agreement with the union, then we have to go back and look at considering what’s good for Volvo.”

Any future plans at the Volvo plant, including a $148 million expansion announced two weeks ago by Gov. Jim Gilmore, will depend on the workers and approval by the General Assembly of a $54.2 million incentive package, Gustafson said Tuesday from his Greensboro, N.C., office.

“If it’s not in the New River Valley, we have to know that and move on with that,” he said. “I will not commit to anything until we have stability in our work force.”

Volvo Trucks North America tripled a retirement benefit for managers and other nonunion employees 12 hours after unionized workers accepted cuts in starting pay and health coverage last week, Volvo officials confirmed Friday.

The company raised its 1998 matching contribution to nonunion employee 401(k) accounts from 25 percent to 75 percent. For every $1,000 saved by workers, the company will contribute $750 instead of the previous level of $250.

Marc Gustafson, president and CEO of Volvo Trucks, announced the added benefit in a Jan. 29 memorandum to his managers titled “rewarding success.”

“These decisions were made some time ago,” he wrote. “But we delayed their announcement in order to avoid complicating the recent labor negotiations, which were just concluded.”

Gustafson congratulated the nonunion workers on “the most successful year in our company’s history” and listed several benefits including a fifth week of vacation for employees with at least 20 years of service.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell says he’s sworn off two of his longtime favorites — politicians and banana pudding.

Falwell said last week he expects to regularly “confront the culture” on national television programs instead of supporting political candidates, and start a new diet following a recent heart operation.

Over the past year, Falwell has re-emerged on the national stage in a flurry of television appearances after years of financial problems.

A series of cutbacks and gifts, the most recent a $27 million donation in September, has erased the bulk of the $120 million debt that burdened Falwell’s operations ministries only seven years ago. Now Falwell’s Liberty University has its academic accreditation off probation and is looking at adding more dorms and other buildings.

And the televangelist, whose show the “Old Time Gospel Hour” never left the airways, says his aim hasn’t changed, just some of his targets. Falwell has given up campaigning for politicians as he did for President Reagan in the 1980s.

“I don’t plan ever to get back into Moral Majority-type work,” he said. “What I did I did because I felt led to do it then and I’m glad I did it. . . . My thing [now] is a nonpartisan biblical approach to moral and social issues.”