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Goodyear Workers Keep Heat on Tire Maker |
Striking members of the United Steelworkers (USW) plan to turn up the heat on Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. with a rally outside the NASCAR awards dinner in New York City on Friday. Goodyear is the exclusive tire maker for NASCAR.
The rally is part of the workers’ international effort to educate the public about the ongoing labor dispute at 15 North American Goodyear plants. Two weekends ago, striking workers and their supporters rallied and handed out informational fliers at Goodyear stores in 10 cities in the United States and Canada, including the Akron, Ohio, and Toronto headquarters for the company’s U.S. and Canadian operations.
This weekend, the strikers again will be handing out leaflets at tire service centers that sell Goodyear tires.
The 15,000 USW members were forced out on strike Oct. 5 after the company refused to budge on its demands to close the Tyler, Texas, plant, which would affect 1,100 workers, and to abandon its obligation to provide health care benefits for retirees, among other issues.
The striking workers saw what union solidarity means up close during the Thanksgiving holiday. Across the country, union members made sure Goodyear workers received good meals and were able to celebrate the holiday. In Danville, Va., AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Virginia AFL-CIO President James Leaman and North Carolina State AFL-CIO President James Andrews joined hundreds of union members and community supporters for a “Salvation of American Jobs on This Thanksgiving” rally Nov. 21. Each striking member received a turkey for Thanksgiving. In Fayetteville, N.C., union members provided Thanksgiving dinners for Goodyear workers on the picket lines.
Three years ago, union workers at Goodyear agreed to freeze their wages and to freeze pensions for the first two years of the contracts. They also agreed to pay medical premiums for the first time, gave the company work rule changes permitting job consolidations for increased productivity and accepted the closure of one plant. In return for the givebacks, the company promised the workers job security.
Goodyear CEO Robert Keegan hailed the 2003 agreement as a “historic partnership.” He said the “ground-breaking agreement” was an important step toward the turnaround of the company’s North American business. In a Sept. 15, 2003, statement, Keegan said the contract was
fair and demonstrates what can be accomplished when the parties work cooperatively to address the serious problems facing U.S. manufacturers.
Now, Goodyear, which Keegan still heads, wants to abandon its responsibility for any future payment of retiree benefits by making a one-time payment to a fund that would provide inferior benefits.
Those givebacks allowed the company to return to profitability for the first time since 2000 and its stock has rebounded from $4 per share in 2003 to more than $16 today. Last year, Keegan pocketed salary and stock options worth more than $7 million. But now that the workers are seeking their fair share of the profits they helped create, management is closing the door on the very people they called their partners three years ago by demanding even bigger givebacks.
About a month ago, Goodyear hired replacement workers to make tires in the struck plants. In another insult to workers, management borrowed $1 billion to fight the strike and another $1 billion in unsecured notes.
Another part of the workers’ struggle for a fair deal at the giant tire maker is a new website, Goodyear Alert, to let Goodyear shareholders and the investment community know about the latest research and news about the company. On the Goodyear Alert site, the USW last week released a scathing critique of Goodyear’s claims on its recent earnings.
Ron Bloom, USW’s corporate research director, says:
Goodyear Alert details the costs and risks Goodyear faces as a result of management’s decision to provoke a labor dispute with the United Steelworkers. We want to ensure Goodyear shareholders, analysts and other investors have access to this information.
USW Executive Vice President Ron Hoover, the union’s Goodyear contract coordinator, says the union is open to talks but as an equal partner:
Our union has shown that it can be an extremely innovative partner provided that we’re engaged in a fully informed and open dialogue with the company, and as long as the company is mindful of its substantial and continuing obligations to our members, retirees and their communities.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution supporting the strikers. It condemns the tire maker’s abandonment of U.S. manufacturing, workers and communities and its assault on the health security of its workers and retirees. The resolution calls for a nationwide Day of Action to protest Goodyear’s assault on the economic security and basic rights of working families and USW members, as well as current and future retirees.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the attempt by Goodyear
to slash wages and benefits for its workers while awarding executives with multimillion dollar bonuses is obscene. The 10 million members of the AFL-CIO will stand behind the Goodyear workers 100 percent.
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