Goodyear Union Notified Of Another Layoff

Tyler Morning Telegraph, July 23, 2008

Workers at Tyler's Goodyear plant were notified on Tuesday of another
impending layoff.

Harold Sweat, president of United Steelworkers Local 746L, said the
layoff will occur Sept. 22-Oct. 6 and include about 70 people.

Goodyear referred to the layoffs as "permanent separation."

The company issued a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification
(WARN) Act notice of the layoffs, and the notice also contained a phrase
saying the plant "will be permanently closed," Sweat said.

"After many months of thorough review, Goodyear has decided to close the
entire Tyler plant," Sweat read from the notice.

This will leave the plant with about 25 to 30 people, he said.

The union and the company have agreed that some workers will stay on for
a longer period of time after this layoff. Sweat said the ones remaining
will work through a phase of the plant's closure. He said the company
has not provided the union with a list of jobs they will perform.

Tuesday's announcement was the second such WARN act notice received by
the plant in less than two months.

On June 6, Goodyear notified the union that about 110 people would be
laid off in August. Sweat said that layoff has been set for Aug. 8. He
said workers and their spouses will attend meetings in the plant on
Thursday to get details about benefits and compensation packages.

Workers released in this layoff, the just-announced September-October
layoff and an ultimate plant closure will be covered by the compensation
package in the Goodyear proposal that the union ratified on Friday.

Sweat said 94 percent of the members voting cast their vote for
ratification.

The master union contract stipulated the plant be kept open until the
contract expires, in July 2009, but the union's ratification of the
company's proposal gave Goodyear the right to close it early.

Efforts to reach the company on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

During the last contract negotiations between the company and the USW,
the union struggled to keep the Tyler plant open, and the three-year
master contract guaranteed the Tyler plant would be kept open through
Dec. 31, 2007.

The company, however, ceased tire production there, reduced the plant's
employee base by several hundred people and retained the plant as a
rubber-mixing operation.

Amy Brei, Goodyear manager of manufacturing communications, last week
said that a date for plant closure had not been set.

She said the company was seeking to close the plant early because of a
decrease in the requirement for rubber mixed in Tyler. Goodyear stock
closed up $1.49 to settle at $20.02 on Tuesday.