USWA Sues to Enjoin Cooper Tire's Announced Sale of Automotive Products Plants, Pending Arbitration
PITTSBURGH--Sept. 28, 2004--| Company Backtracks on Change of Ownership Provision, Promise To Arbitrate |
The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) filed suit to enjoin the sale by Cooper Tire & Rubber of four USWA-represented plants in the Cooper-Standard Automotive Division until the parties have conducted expedited arbitration of a major, sale-related dispute.
Cooper Tire announced on September 17 its plans to sell the plants as a part of a transaction where the Cypress Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners will acquire Cooper-Standard Automotive for $1.165 billion by the year-end of 2004.
Under current labor agreements, Cooper and the Union agreed that Cooper would sell its USWA-represented plants only to new owners who had reached new labor agreements with the Union. The USWA has repeatedly asked Cooper Tire to introduce it to the prospective buyers so that bargaining can be completed without delay of the sale. Cooper has refused, insisting that the Union has no right to bargain over its sale-related concerns as long as the purchaser is willing to operate under the labor agreements negotiated between Cooper Tire and the USWA.
Given the stalemate on whether their labor contract requires pre-sale bargaining the between the Union and purchaser, the USWA has repeatedly sought arbitration of the dispute, even offering to expedite the arbitration to avoid delay in the sale timetable.
The Company has rejected arbitration of any kind, whether normal or expedited. Most recently, Cooper has recently contended that, if it did agree to sell only to a buyer who had bargained new agreements with the Union, that action was unlawful on its part and its illegal action should relieve it of any duty to arbitrate whatsoever.
"We bargained provisions in the contract to guarantee that our members would not be sold like packaged goods," said USWA executive vice president John Sellers. "We've earned the right to meet with owners and ask questions about their financial viability, their business plans and perspective, and how they view issues such as plant shutdowns or consolidations, health-care carriers, and outsourcing of work. If there's one thing we've learned, it's that a labor contract with one owner is not necessarily the right approach with a new and different owner. By plowing ahead with this sale and denying us our opportunity to fashion an appropriate agreement, Cooper Tire is stripping its workforce of a vital protection."
The request for injunction was filed yesterday by the USWA and USWA Local 634 of Auburn, Indiana in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Fort Wayne Division. In addition to the Auburn, Indiana facility, two others are located in Bowling Green, Ohio and another is in El Dorado, Arkansas.
"At this point, given the Company's insistence on its reading of our contract, all the Union is seeking is for the federal court to require Cooper to arbitrate whether there has to be pre-sale bargaining and, of course, to enjoin the sale pending the arbitration of that question, because you obviously can't have pre-sale bargaining after a sale," Sellers said. "We have a twenty-year relationship with Cooper. Frankly, with the time that has already gone by, I'm astonished that the company has not already agreed to arbitrate this quickly."