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7 September, 2009
United Steelworker (USW) members at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in the US will begin voting later this week on a four-year labour agreement, covering over 10,000 workers at seven American factories. A tentative agreement between the USW and Goodyear, America’s biggest tyre manufacturer, was reached late in the evening on 29 August, just hours before a second contract extension was due to expire.
Collective agreements between North America’s largest industrial union and the US’s three major tyre-makers – Goodyear, Bridgestone Americas LLC, and Michelin’s BF Goodrich subsidiary – expired on 18 July, but the USW and Goodyear and Michelin North America twice extended negotiation deadlines.
On 15 August, the union and Michelin reached accord on a three-year contract covering 2,500 workers. Workers at two of the company’s plants, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, ratified the agreement some eight days later by an 83% affirmative vote. A third Michelin plant, in Opelika, Alabama, that employs 1,000 is set to close on 31 October, and the union and North American management of Michelin negotiated a satisfactory plant-closing pact several months ago.
Talks with Bridgestone, covering 4,500 workers at seven of nine of the Japanese company’s US plants, are still ongoing. Workers covered under that master agreement are employed now under day-by-day extensions, with each side required to give a five-day notice before contract termination.
The USW’s chief goals in US tyre talks this summer have been job security, investment in facilities, and improvements in worker and retiree benefits, specifically related to company-sponsored health care coverage.
At the Goodyear manufacturing plants, USW members are now involved in informational sessions spelling out the terms of the proposed accord, with site-by-site voting to follow. The Goodyear plant sites include: Union City, Tennessee, where auto and light truck tyres are made; Topeka, Kansas, a plant manufacturing commercial truck, bus, and off-road equipment tyres; Gadsden, Alabama, auto and light truck; Fayetteville, North Carolina, auto and light truck; Danville, Virginia, commercial truck and bus tyres, and aircraft tyres; and Akron, Ohio, race-car tyres.
Meanwhile, the USW is bracing for a 17 September deadline in which President Barack Obama must decide on a US International Trade Commission (ITC) recommendation to impose higher tariffs on low-end Chinese tyres entering the American marketplace. The USW petitioned the ITC for relief because of a 215% increase between 2004 and 2008 in Chinese tyre exports to the US. The case is seen as a litmus test for Obama on whether or not he keeps a campaign pledge to protect US-based jobs.