Goodyear, Steelworkers extend contract 4 weeks

WRAL.COM July 14, 2009

AKRON, Ohio — Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the United Steelworkers of America have extended their national contract four weeks until Aug. 15, both sides said Tuesday.

The three-year contract covering about 10,300 Steelworkers at seven Goodyear plants in the U.S. had been scheduled to expire Saturday. The extension was announced by the company in an e-mail statement. The union's contract Web site also detailed the move.

The Steelworkers said job security would overshadow other issues in contract talks covering workers in Akron; Buffalo, N.Y.; Danville, Va.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Gadsden, Ala.; Topeka, Kan., and Union City, Tenn.

All terms of the current agreement will remain in force with the extension, the union said.

Contract talks, which began last month, continue in Cincinnati.

Progress "remains slow," according to the union's bargaining committee's Web site. Still, the union "believes we can reach a new labor agreement before Aug. 15, 2009 that is fair and equitable to all of our members," the Web site said.

Goodyear said it was confident an agreement could be reached, but didn't specify when.
"We remain confident that we will reach an agreement that is acceptable to both sides," Jim Allen, Goodyear's chief negotiator, said in a statement released by the Akron-based company.

Goodyear, Steelworkers Bargain During Tough Economy

The Buffalo News, June 23, 2009

Contract negotiations will affect local tire plant in Tonawanda, which has over 900 hourly workers

Goodyear Tire & Rubber and the United Steelworkers are negotiating a new contract — talks that will have a local impact.

The Goodyear Dunlop Tires North America plant on Sheridan Drive in the Town of Tonawanda is one of seven U. S. facilities covered by the bargaining, with a combined total of 10,300 workers. The current three-year labor agreement expires July 18.

The local plant makes tires for passenger cars, commercial trucks and motorcycles. It has already has felt the effects of the economic downturn and the company’s push to reduce costs, cutting almost 150 jobs late last year through buyouts and layoffs.

The existing national agreement did not come about easily. In 2006, the Steelworkers went on strike for three months before approving a deal. This time, the two sides are bargaining amid a recession, with auto sales stuck in a slump.

Wayne Ranick, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh-based Steelworkers, said he believes the talks will go more smoothly this time.

A major point of contention, involving retiree health care, was resolved in the last round of talks, he said, and both sides are cognizant of the current economic climate.

Ranick said the union’s priorities are jobs and keeping the plants operating, along with ensuring adequate capital investment in the facilities. “That sort of all goes together,” he said.
Goodyear says it has to control costs so that the company remains competitive in a global marketplace. The tire maker identifies four key issues in the talks: productivity, flexibility, pensions and benefits.

By flexibility, the company says it means its plants “must have workers in the right place, at the right time, producing the right products at the right cost.”

Goodyear in December 2008 froze its defined pension benefit plans for its U. S. salaried workers, but not its hourly workers. It says its pension plans are “significantly underfunded,” following declines in interest rates and pension asset values.

In remarks to the bargaining teams at the start of talks in Cincinnati, Goodyear executive Rich Kramer cited the economic climate and the fact that the company’s North American business lost $189 million in the first quarter as major challenges.

Kramer, who is chief operating officer and president of North American Tire, said Goodyear’s goal is “profitable growth by building tires in North America.” The company will never be the low-cost manufacturer of tires, he said, so it must find ways to improve efficiency.

The Tonawanda tire plant has 948 hourly workers represented by the Steelworkers, along with 152 salaried workers, said Diane Zwirecki, a spokeswoman at the plant. An additional 40 salaried employees work at offices in Amherst, for a combined work force of 1,140.

The manufacturing plant produces an average of 5,500 motorcycle tires, 4,200 passenger tires and 2,000 truck tires per day, Zwirecki said.

USW at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s Akron Technical Center Approves Buyouts

Cleveland Ohio Business News, June 11, 2009

Members of the United Steelworkers union who make racing tires at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s Akron Technical Center have agreed to buyouts for 120 workers there, USW Local 2L reported Wednesday.

The local's 440 members voted on the new staffing level. The vote also affirmed an agreement with the tire maker to preserve 256 USW jobs at the tech center for 2½ more years.

"We will keep the manufacturing staff level at that level through 2012," Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said.

Union workers who accept the buyout would receive $2,000 for every year of service, to a maximum of $40,000. The local said about 130 of the members eligible for buyouts are of retirement age. If fewer than 120 union members accept the buyout, Goodyear can lay off enough workers to make up the difference, Markey said. He said the buyouts have no effect on engineering and other salaried employees at the tech center.

Some union personnel argued that approval of the agreement could open the door for the company to move its rubber-production operations to Buffalo, N.Y. The company declined to comment on such a possibility.

'Typical' Start to Goodyear Contract Talks

Akron Beacon Journal, June 9, 2009

Goodyear wants to remain a viable company.

The Steelworkers want to make sure their members have jobs.

That basically sums up the opening presentations Monday in Cincinnati between Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the United Steelworkers as contract negotiations began in earnest, according to a union official. The current three-year contract expires July 18.

Rich Kramer, Goodyear's new chief operating officer and president of the North American Tire division, spoke to the group, as did Tom Conway, who is leading the negotiations for the Steelworkers.

Goodyear released a short excerpt from Kramer's presentation.

"I believe our new agreement will be a reflection of our shared interests and our mutual desire to make Goodyear the best-performing tire company in North America and the model for success in these uncertain times. . .a model others will look to as an example of how to win with manufacturing right here at home," Kramer said.

"Our future together won't look like the past. Our present doesn't even look like the past. But our vision should be the same. The goal of this negotiation is to reach an agreement that is consistent with the new realities of our industry and outlines the actions that we -- Goodyear and the USW under one banner -- must take to win," he said.

"At this point, we're looking for job security," said Kevin Johnsen, the union's Goodyear contract negotiator.

Johnsen said it was a "typical" opening day for master contract talks that had both sides exchanging comprehensive proposals and meeting face to face for several hours.
The next face-to-face meeting will take place in a number of days, once each side has had enough time to review the proposals, Johnsen said.

The Steelworkers have about 10,300 union members working at seven U.S. plants, including about 440 members in Akron.

The union went on strike in the fall of 2006 for 12 weeks. The strike ended in late December after the Akron tire maker and union agreed to create an independent health-care trust, called a VEBA, for union retirees.

USW Talks Begin

Rubber & Plastics News, June 1, 2009

Initial bargaining sessions for the 2009 tire industry master contracts are set to begin this week.

United Steelworkers negotiating committees will start talks June 1 in Cincinnati with representatives of Goodyear and in Lexington, Ky., with Michelin North America Inc.'s BFGoodrich unit. A week later on June 8, contract discussions will begin in Louisville, Ky., between the USW and Bridgestone Americas.

The current BFG and Bridgestone contracts, covering about 3,200 and 4,500 workers, respectively, expire July 18. The Goodyear pact, covering about 11,500 workers, lapses July 22.

The Pittsburgh-based USW said it will emphasize job and plant security, investments at unionized plants, retiree benefits, tiered wage scales and health safety in this year's negotiations. Michelin announced in April it will close sometime this fall its Opelika, Ala., tire plant, one of three sites in the BFG chain where the USW represents the hourly workers.

Goodyear Workers Block French Operations Due to Planned Lay-Offs

Global Insight, June 3, 2009

Goodyear workers in France have blocked operations at the Amiens (France) plant, reacting to the firm's planned lay-offs at the facility, reports local newspaper Le Monde. The strike action yesterday involved about 400-500 workers, who restricted access to Amiens facility for a 24-hour period, demanding Goodyear management review its lay-off plans. Meanwhile, French workers of rival tyre-maker Continental have clinched an agreement with their management to be paid a minimum compensation of 50,000 euro ($69US,670), towards the closure of Continental's Clairoix plant (seeFrance: 1 June 2009:). Continental union representatives have asserted that they plan to join the Goodyear workers in the latter's bid for an equal compensation or fewer lay-offs.

Significance:Goodyear has already laid off 3,800 workers during the first quarter of this year and aims to reduce its built-up inventory by over $500US million during the year, on the lines of its Four-Point Cost Savings Plan aimed to achieve $2US.5 billion in gross cost savings by the end of this year. Goodyear is reportedly planning to discontinue consumer tyre production at its Amiens plant, in its bid to reduce its high-cost manufacturing facilities globally. The decision has met with characteristic rebellion from the local French union and with the support of Continental's workers, Goodyear appear set for a tough round of summer negotiations over the job losses.

Union-busting at Goodyear Peru

Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de Goodyear de Peru, June 3, 2009

27 workers at the Goodyear Peru plant in Callao continue to fight for reinstatement after they were dismissed from the company in December 2008, in what appears to be a case of blatant union busting and discrimination against union activists and some of the company’s most senior workers.

Of the 27 workers who lost their jobs, ten were founding members of the union, the Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de Goodyear de Peru, four were union officers, and the majority counted more than 20 years of service to the company. Although most of the dismissed workers were fired outright, ten of them were forced to sign “voluntary” resignation letters. The workers were fired just as the union was beginning talks with the company on issues including freedom of association and collection bargaining and workers’ right to be protected from arbitrary dismissals.

“The Minister of Labor (Jehude Simon) told us to accept Goodyear’s layoff package because it was a good deal. But I have worked at the plant for 20 years and still have children to raise,” said one of the dismissed workers. “We can’t sit back and let Goodyear get away with using harassment and pressure to eliminate decent union jobs.”

Even though production at the plant has held steady, since firing the 25 workers, Goodyear Peru has reduced shifts at the plant from three to two per day. To keep things running, the company is relying on young, untrained workers on short-term contracts, and paying them only a third of what union members earned for the same work. The majority of employees are now on short-term contracts and are too insecure to stand up for their rights at work for fear that the company won’t renew their contracts.

The union has raised formal complaints about the dismissals to local and national authorities, but Goodyear Peru has not chosen to reinstate the fired workers in meetings with the local authorities and has so far refused to meet with the national authorities. The union is appealing to the Supreme Court, and calling on its brothers and sisters in Goodyear unions around the world to support them.