ROANOKE - State business leaders say foreign competition, workers compensation issues and skyrocketing health care costs are hurting West Virginia manufacturing.

"I've been here for 25 years, and times have never been this tough for this long," Jim Mills of AFG Industries said Friday during panel discussion about manufacturing at the seventh annual Industries of the Future-West Virginia Symposium at Stonewall Resort.

Affordable health care and sweeping changes to the state's workers compensation program are two of Mills main concerns.

"We need more legislative changes that the judicial system will not take back," Mills said. "That's very important, because if we make changes and the Supreme Court changes it, were right back where we started."

Mills and officials from other manufacturing companies with operations in the state talked about what led to 2.8 million Americans losing their manufacturing jobs since July 2000.

They also spoke about West Virginia-specific problems, such as workers' compensation costs. The flat glass industry was once a large West Virginia employer. Now, AFG's Bridgeport plant, which makes glass for automobiles and commercial architecture, is the only remaining facility, Mills said.

Only 250 people work at the plant, compared with nearly 600 in 1980, he said. AFG pays $2.80 an hour per employee for workers' compensation costs at the Bridgeport plant, compared with 75 cents an hour at its other facilities, he said.

The chemical industry, the state's largest manufacturing employer, is also struggling, said Barry Phillips, head of business development at Bayer Polymers LLC. West Virginia's chemical industry, ranked 19th in the country in 2000, fell to 25th by 2001.

While the percentage of the nation's gross product made by the chemical industry increased 8.4 percent since 1995, its percentage of West Virginia's gross state product dropped 47.3 percent, Phillips said.

For the chemical industry to rebound, there must be significant tort reform and more workers' compensation changes, Phillips said. Many of the chemical facilities in West Virginia are older and need renovation, he said.

Some of the speakers said a perception that the state Supreme Court is anti-business makes it harder to operate here.

"We just have got to get to the point where it's not part of what's killing us here," said Ric Love, technical manager for Century Aluminum of West Virginia Inc.

Also attending was a representative of U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and three members of the state Legislature, who pointed to steps made to reform workers' compensation during the last session as evidence that they are working to fix the perceived problems.

"Your message is being received loud and clear," said Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha, a leader of the reforms. "We have to get about the business of business and fix these costs."

Nationally, companies are dealing with extensive legacy costs, as shown when bankrupt Weirton Steel said half of the debt it owed was for retirees.

"We live in a state with a $3 billion budget," said state Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, D-Pocahontas. "We can't support that budget with the dwindling employment base that we have. We have our backs against the wall."

Only one county in West Virginia, Hardy County, has more manufacturing jobs than retail jobs, he said.

But the news isn't all bleak.

Jim Wadsworth of Weyerhaeuser told the assembled group Friday that forestry is one of the state's true success stories.

Even so, that business is starting to lose ground to foreign competitors, especially China, he said. The recent bad weather and environmental concerns also have hurt the wood industry, Wadsworth said.

"There are more trees now than ever before, but there is less actually available partly because of those environmental concerns," Wadsworth said.