Goodyear trimming overtime hours

The Fayetteville Observer, January 24, 2009

Faced with lower demand for tires, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant on Ramsey Street has limited its crews to a 40-hour work week.

Most of Goodyear’s roughly 3,000 employees in Fayetteville had, until this month, been working at least 42 hours per week. That’s because the plant operates on a 12-hour, continuous operation schedule that automatically builds in two hours of overtime.

“The plant is taking out two hours of overtime per week on each crew,” plant spokesman Richard Evans said in a written statement.

The move isn’t sitting well with some employees, said Mike Price, vice president of United Steelworkers Local 959.

“That costs you money,” Price said. “In some instances that’s $100 a week, $400 a month.”

Although Goodyear took several weeks off during 2008 to bring inventory in line with demand, Price said that until late last year, some employees had been logging overtime beyond the two hours built into the schedule.

The union is filing a grievance over the latest move to the 40-hour work week and will see where arbitration takes it, Price said.

But he said Goodyear’s decision is not without logic.

“This is a savings to the company,” Price said. “And we understand why the company is doing this. Everybody is trying to save money right now. But if you’re the one losing that money it can be hard. ”

Employees aren’t happy about missing out on two hours of pay, he said.

“But at least they’re working 40 hours a week and still getting a paycheck with no threat of any kind of layoff at this point,” Price said.

The schedule for reducing the hours will vary “based on such things as customer demand and crew alignment,” Evans said in his statement.

“The important thing is that the hours be the same for all crews so it is fair for all crews,” he added.

This is the second week the 40-hour week plan is in effect, Price said.

“There could be one week where we get orders in and we won’t have to take two hours away,” Price said. “That could go for two or three weeks and then we get too many tires and we’ll have to do it again.”

Consumer demand continues to be an issue across the tire industry. This week, Goodyear competitor, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, announced that in Tennessee it is eliminating 543 jobs in the consumer tire production side.