Goodyear Fight Is Struggle for All Workers, Retirees

Rochester, N.Y.

Goodyear management awoke to the power of solidarity at 150 stores around the country as Steel Workers were joined by thousands of members from other unions to protest the company's attempt to renege on promises it made to its workers and retirees.

On what has traditionally been a busy shopping weekend, 75,000 union members and their allies held placards and banners and handed out informational fliers at tire service centers across the country that sell Goodyear tires.

The Dec. 16, 2006, leafleting ratcheted up the heat on Goodyear as the United Steelworkers built public support for 15,000 workers from 15 plants in the United States and Canada who have been on strike since Oct. 5, 2006.

The IUE-CWA local in Tyler, Texas, has been on the picket line with their hometown brothers and sisters since the strike began. "We wanted them to know we are united," Local 782 President Tony Hayes stated. "We understand it's a fight for all Americans, to protect the quality of the jobs we have here, and to preserve jobs for the Americans who still have good paying manufacturing jobs in the United States."

Three years ago, union workers at Goodyear agreed to freeze wages and pensions for the first two years of the contracts. They also agreed to pay medical premiums for the first time, gave the company work rule changes permitting job consolidations for increased productivity and accepted the closure of one plant.

In return for the givebacks, the company promised the workers job security.

But instead, in this contract round, the company has refused to budge on its demands to close a plant in Tyler, Texas, and abandon its obligation to provide health care benefits for retirees.

USW points out that many of the retirees are suffering from illnesses and medical conditions directly related to their jobs.

Goodyear can afford to pay for retiree health care. The 2003 givebacks allowed the company to return to profitability for the first time since 2000. Goodyear stock rebounded from $4 per share in 2003 to more than $16 today.

Last year, Goodyear CEO Robert Keegan pocketed salary and stock options worth more than $7 million. But now that the workers are seeking their fair share of the profits they helped create, management is closing the door on the very people they called their partners three years ago.

About a month ago, Goodyear hired replacement workers to make tires in the struck plants, and management has borrowed $2 billion to fight the strike.

IUE-CWA organized protests at six sites in New York, Kentucky and Virginia and turned out as strongly at locations in Ohio and Maryland as well.

"As manufacturing workers, this story is all too familiar to IUE-CWA members," said IUE-CWA President Jim Clark, who leafleted at a store in Rockville, Md. "If Goodyear can abandon its retirees other manufacturers will soon follow that same path. We must stand by our USW brothers and sisters in this fight."

In addition to store leafleting, the USW also led protests at a NASCAR awards dinner in New York City. Goodyear is the exclusive tire maker for NASCAR.

At press time, Goodyear had agreed to resume bargaining and a massive rally was scheduled for Dec. 19, 2006, outside Goodyear's Akron, Ohio, headquarters.