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5 December, 2011
US-based Cooper Tire and Rubber surprised rubber workers and their union, the United Steelworkers (USW), by rejecting good-faith efforts to extend a labour agreement and locking 1,050 USW members off their jobs at a tyre factory in Findlay, Ohio.
The lockout against USW Local 207L started on 28 November after workers rejected a concession-laden three-year proposal by a 606-305 vote the day before. The USW then offered to extend the agreement that had expired on 31 October, but Cooper responded by imposing the lockout.
At the weekend, the company said it intended to take 30 days to re-start production using managers and temporary replacement workers. A senior manager of the US’s fourth largest tyre-maker predicted full production in Findlay by then. The company statement is seen as a direct affront to unionized rubber workers at another US Cooper’s tyre plant, in Texarkana, Texas.
USW Local 752L in Texarkana currently is in bargaining with Cooper over a labour agreement that expires early in 2012. The 1,500 workers there have given union leaders a strike mandate through a vote. Bargaining in Findlay saw USW Local 207L not take a strike vote, making last week’s lockout unprovoked and a harmful retaliatory action by Cooper.
The lockout is also a bitter stab at USW’s rubber workers who assisted the company in gaining US trade Section 421 protections against dumping of tyre imports into the US by China. In 2008, in the midst of the US debt crisis that crippled American manufacturing, Local 207L members granted US$30 million in contract concessions to Cooper to keep it operating.
The ICEM condemns the lockout for these reasons, and the fact that it now seeks more givebacks from Findlay’s steelworkers at a time when it has resumed bonuses to executives. Cooper operates seven manufacturing plants, including former Avon Tyre factories in the UK, and start-up plants in Mexico and joint ventures in China.