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6 March, 2006
Even as German affiliate IGBCE came to acceptable terms with Continental Tyre over a plant downsizing in Hannover, two other ICEM-affiliated trade unions face difficulties with the company. In the US, United Steelworkers (USW) is fully engaged in achieving job protection measures in negotiations at a tyre plant in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Continental North America announced last year that it would make redundant 510 of the plant’s 1,083 jobs this year, and then dropped a concession-ridden proposal on the union seeking US$32 million in costs savings that includes across-the-board 15% pay cuts.
USW has criticized the “slash and burn proposal.” Union Executive Vice President Ron Hoover said, “There are absolutely zero job security provisions to maintain future productivity” in Continental’s proposal, a deviation from the master rubber contracts that Goodyear, Bridgestone-Firestone and BF Goodrich/Michelin operate under in the US. A labour agreement in place since 1999 at the Charlotte plant expires on 30 April 2006.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), meanwhile, has condemned Continental for failing to abide by a labour court ruling to reinstate workers at its Port Elizabeth plant. The workers were sacked after the company unilaterally changed working hours without consultations with NUMSA. The union has taken legal action, and is threatening a strike and a boycott of Conti products through its affiliation with COSATU, a South African national labour centre.