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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 03/2003
U nion leaders representing employees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 27 countries joined the negotiating team of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) here today for the opening of master contract negotiations with the company.
The talks will address contracts covering 20,000 active workers and 22,000 retirees across the United States. The current three-year agreement is set to expire on April 19, 2003 at the Goodyear and Dunlop plants and on July 6, 2003 at the Kelly-Springfield facilities.
The international delegation included rubber workers union officials from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Germany. Together with the USWA, they comprise the steering committee of the Goodyear Global Union Network of the 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), a global union federation. The network includes Goodyear unions on six continents and is chaired by USWA International Vice President Andrew V. Palm.
Palm will lead the USWA Goodyear/Kelly-Springfield/Dunlop bargaining team. “The security of our members’ jobs, wages, benefits and retirement earnings are our paramount concern,” he stated. “We are convinced that Goodyear can return to profitability while also ensuring these basic protections.”
“We are proud and grateful that the Goodyear unions from around the world are standing by our side,” Palm continued. “Their presence here at the opening of our contract negotiations demonstrates our unity and resolve to work together across borders for the common benefit of Goodyear workers everywhere in the world.”
The USWA local unions involved in the contract negotiations include those from Akron/Green, Ohio; Gadsden, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; St. Mary’s, Ohio; Lincoln, Neb.; Topeka, Kan.; Freeport, Ill.; Tyler, Texas; Danville, Va.; Marysville, Ohio; Union City, Tenn.; Sun Prairie, Wis.; Huntsville, Ala.; Fayetteville, N.C.
“The trade union movement is developing the capacity to have the same global reach as the multinational corporations for which our members work,” said Carlos Antonio da Silva of the Latin American rubber workers union federation FUTINAL from Brazil. “What you’re seeing here in Cincinnati is global unionism in action.”
The other union leaders who were present were Joao Batista Gonçalves of FUTINAL from Brazil; Bill Holmes of the U.K. union AMICUS; Karl-Heinz Schädel, chairman of the Goodyear Dunlop Central Works Council of Germany and member of the Goodyear European Works Council steering committee from the German union IG Bergbau Chemie Energie; Abdullah Karacan, president of the Turkish union Lastik-Is; Kemal Özkan of Lastik-Is; and Marc Welters and Kenneth Zinn of the ICEM.
In addition to providing support to the USWA, the international union leaders had an opportunity to discuss matters affecting Goodyear workers around the world with senior company management.
“We are pleased to have this opportunity to have a dialogue with Goodyear senior management,” said the U.K.’s Bill Holmes, “and hope to continue the discussion and reach an understanding with the company so that Goodyear workers the world over are treated with the same dignity and respect.”
The talks will address contracts covering 20,000 active workers and 22,000 retirees across the United States. The current three-year agreement is set to expire on April 19, 2003 at the Goodyear and Dunlop plants and on July 6, 2003 at the Kelly-Springfield facilities.
The international delegation included rubber workers union officials from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Germany. Together with the USWA, they comprise the steering committee of the Goodyear Global Union Network of the 20-million-member International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), a global union federation. The network includes Goodyear unions on six continents and is chaired by USWA International Vice President Andrew V. Palm.
Palm will lead the USWA Goodyear/Kelly-Springfield/Dunlop bargaining team. “The security of our members’ jobs, wages, benefits and retirement earnings are our paramount concern,” he stated. “We are convinced that Goodyear can return to profitability while also ensuring these basic protections.”
“We are proud and grateful that the Goodyear unions from around the world are standing by our side,” Palm continued. “Their presence here at the opening of our contract negotiations demonstrates our unity and resolve to work together across borders for the common benefit of Goodyear workers everywhere in the world.”
The USWA local unions involved in the contract negotiations include those from Akron/Green, Ohio; Gadsden, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; St. Mary’s, Ohio; Lincoln, Neb.; Topeka, Kan.; Freeport, Ill.; Tyler, Texas; Danville, Va.; Marysville, Ohio; Union City, Tenn.; Sun Prairie, Wis.; Huntsville, Ala.; Fayetteville, N.C.
“The trade union movement is developing the capacity to have the same global reach as the multinational corporations for which our members work,” said Carlos Antonio da Silva of the Latin American rubber workers union federation FUTINAL from Brazil. “What you’re seeing here in Cincinnati is global unionism in action.”
The other union leaders who were present were Joao Batista Gonçalves of FUTINAL from Brazil; Bill Holmes of the U.K. union AMICUS; Karl-Heinz Schädel, chairman of the Goodyear Dunlop Central Works Council of Germany and member of the Goodyear European Works Council steering committee from the German union IG Bergbau Chemie Energie; Abdullah Karacan, president of the Turkish union Lastik-Is; Kemal Özkan of Lastik-Is; and Marc Welters and Kenneth Zinn of the ICEM.
In addition to providing support to the USWA, the international union leaders had an opportunity to discuss matters affecting Goodyear workers around the world with senior company management.
“We are pleased to have this opportunity to have a dialogue with Goodyear senior management,” said the U.K.’s Bill Holmes, “and hope to continue the discussion and reach an understanding with the company so that Goodyear workers the world over are treated with the same dignity and respect.”