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27 November, 2006
Following failed bargaining between negotiators for the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. from 14 to 17 November, the ICEM North American affiliate has heightened its safety and awareness campaign against the US tyre-maker.
On 2 December, the USW will dispatch hundreds of strikers and supporters to 13 cities in the US and Canada to handbill Goodyear retail outlets. The effort, following a similar one on 18 November, will call attention to possible safety defects of Goodyear tyres to be sold in America. The company is attempting to run production at several of the 16 plant sites that are currently on strike with managers and temporary workers.
The USW has erected an “Investor Alert” website, www.usw.org/goodyearalert, aimed at some 15,000 industry analysts, in an effort to drive the company’s stock price down. The site calls into question Goodyear’s third-quarter earnings report, and gives a truthful account of the company’s future while skilled crafts-people are on strike.
A total of 55% of the company’s outstanding shares is owned by ten institutional investors.
The USW has also begun using a video-sharing site called YouTube to educate the public about the strike and the safety concerns stemming from union members being out. That site can be found at http://www3.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKGJu5eMZo.
The union has moreover begun targeting the NASCAR racing circuit, which is 100% supplied by Goodyear, providing high-quality and expensive race car tyres. USW begins a renewed radio advertising campaign this week, targeting consumers in the New York City area with the safety alert.
That alert is reminiscent of the campaign the union engaged in against Bridgestone/Firestone some 11 years ago. After that lockout, researchers at Princeton University in the US state of New Jersey examined the causes of the Ford Motor recall of 14.4 million Firestone tyres, and linked it to the temporary workers utilised during the dispute.
These tyres were later linked by the US National Highway Safety Transportation Authority to some 271 road fatalities and more than 800 injuries.
The Goodyear strike at the 16 US and Canadian tyre and auto accessory plants by 15,000 steelworkers began on 5 October, after America’s biggest rubber company proposed harsh concessions and refused to guarantee job security at the unionised plants.
The proposed concessionary terms include closing company-paid health care coverage for retirees and a two-tier wage scheme in which new employees will be paid US$13-per-hour with no future opportunity to make what current rubber workers earn. The company also seeks to close at least one tyre-making plant, in Tyler, Texas, where 1,100 workers are employed.
In the mid-November bargaining – the first talks since the strike began – Goodyear proposed to create a US$600 million trust fund for retiree health care. The Akron, Ohio-based company, however, carries a US$1.2 billion liability for retiree care. The proposed US$600 million trust would only provide current retirees with six years of coverage, leaving nothing for future retirees.
The USW has promised to escalate the campaign to an even higher level if the strike is not settled by the first of 2007. The Steelworkers’ general website on all Goodyear related activity can be found at http://www.gkdsolidarityexpress.org.