wiredinUSA December 2014

INDEX

Fire wire damage

A fire at Bekaert’s Rome, Georgia, plant on 19 th November caused extensive damage. The fire appeared to have started in a hood on a bead wire line in the north-central part of the plant. It then spread into the ceiling, said Jeff Oliver, human resources manager of the plant, but no onewas injured. “We got everyone out,” Oliver said. “Everyone’s accounted for.” Employees at the plant were sent home at the time of the fire, and plant personnel will stay in contact with the 225 or so employees to advise them of their job status. “We’ll let everybody know what’s going to happen,” said production manager Robert Winkle. The plant makes bead wire used in the manufacturing of tires and rubber hoses. A spokesman explained that lubricant that helps draw thebeadwire through the system burns off in the lead bath. “When you’ve got a lead bath and it gets in the tube, every once in a while it’ll flame up in the tube, but it has never gotten like that,” he said. Rex Rains, president of CWA/IUE local 83190, which represents 175 of the hourly employees at Bekaert, said the company was already in the preliminary stages of a $29 million upgrade and estimated the Rome plant already had taken delivery on as much as $7 million worth of new equipment. “I don’t think any of that was damaged. It was all on the other side of the plant. I think it was secured.”

wiredInUSA - December 2014 ir I -December 2014

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