Goodyear Rolls Out Last Tire

TylerPaper.com, December 29, 2007

 

On Friday, most of the Tyler Goodyear workers said goodbye to their employer.

A week ago, the company ceased tire production at the Tyler plant on Texas Highway 31 West, a promise Goodyear finalized when it issued the Worker Adjustment Relocation Notice Act in November - a notification given when a company plans to lay off 30 percent or more of its work force.

About 550 people were scheduled for layoff on Tuesday, New Year's Day.

But many had already left the plant for the final time and were using their remaining vacation time because Monday and Tuesday will be holidays. So the workers who had not already left made their final drive out the gate Friday.

Workers from the last shift, the third shift, would leave at 7 a.m. Saturday.

At United Steelworkers Local 746L headquarters, across Texas 31 from the plant, the mood was somber. Employees were calling or making visits to check on benefits or transfer opportunities to other Goodyear plants.

But in the end, Friday was a day when some employees said goodbye to each other, knowing they might not see each other again.

"It's very much like, in anyone's work, when someone retires, the emotion and the sense of loss," said James A. "Bud" Allred, Local 746L treasurer and an employee who will retain his job. "Today, it's like everyone's retiring at once on all the shifts."

Some of the employees have close relationships with each other and depend on each other, Allred said. Much of that would be changed after Friday.

Last year, during negotiations for a new master contract, the USW was only able to receive a company commitment that it would keep the plant open through 2007. Shortly thereafter, Goodyear announced tire production at the plant would cease after this year.

Although most of the employees to be laid off will have left by the end of the third shift Saturday morning, some will be laid off later, after they finish training other workers how to operate equipment in a scaled-down plant operation. Goodyear will retain a mixing operation in Tyler, and rubber will be mixed there for use by other plants.

Another group will move some equipment, clean up and ship tires from the warehouse.

When the few workers who are staying for training and transitioning are finished with their duties, they will be laid off, leaving the plant with about 135 employees.

Union Vice President Harold Sweat, who will assume the president's post on Tuesday, likened the experience to a person coming home from the military and realizing he will not see his friends again, or at least for a long time.

"You have that sense of loss," Sweat said.

He quickly added, however, a bit of a positive note.

"But everybody feels like they're better off for the experience they've had during this time," Sweat said. "The training they've had will prepare them for jobs in the future, so I think everybody will be ready to move forward to whatever life has to give them."