Help Striking Goodyear Workers Get Through the Holidays

by Mike Hall, Dec 19, 2006

Steelworkers and their supporters in St. Paul, Minn., take part in a Goodyear Day of Action Dec. 16.

There is still time to take a break from your holiday shopping, present wrapping and menu planning to help make the holidays a little brighter for nearly 16,000 Goodyear workers and their families who have not seen a paycheck since early October.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. forced its workers—members of the United Steelworkers (USW)—on strike Oct. 5 with its contract demands to close its third plant in four years, export jobs to countries like China, where workers are paid 42 cents an hour, and gut health care for retirees.

While the USW has paid out some $2 million a week in strike benefits, including a $100 holiday bonus, the financial toll is growing—winter heating bills, mortgages and rent, medicine and food. Other unions and concerned groups have pitched in to ease the financial strain and help workers pay their bills—AFL-CIO staff collected nearly $9,000 at the AFL-CIO’s annual holiday party last week.

But more is needed to help the striking workers stand up to a company that has received a $1 billion Wall Street line of credit to help it fight the strike.

The AFL-CIO Working Family Network has established a USW/Goodyear strike fund donation site. Every penny of every donation will go to striking USW members and their families.

You can even make a donation in the name of a family or member or friend—a perfect holiday gift for someone dear to you and for the struggling Goodyear workers.

Please click here and make a generous donation. If you prefer to make a donation by check, make it payable to:

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer
ATTN: Accounting/Goodyear Strike Fund
815 16th St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
Please add this line to the “memo” section of your check: USW/Goodyear

For more on the strike, click here, here and here.

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