Inside Report (4)

Low-cost imports are threatening jobs in yet another US industry: tires.

Milan Stone, president of the United Rubber Workers (URW), says that the announcement that General Tire Company will close its Akron, Ohio, plant is a ''direct'' result of US economic policy, ''both domestic and foreign.'' The US has let more foreign-made tires in, Stone says, while high interest rates make it ''extremely difficult for domestic industries to modernize aging plants'' in order to compete.

In 1981, according to the URW, the US imported more than 36 million car, truck, and bus tires, the equivalent of 12 percent of the US market.