News From USW: USW Blasts Goodyear's Reckless Actions; Announcements of Plant Closing and Hiring Replacement Workers Will Only Make a Settlement More Difficult

PITTSBURGH--

News From USW: The United Steelworkers (USW) today strongly condemned Goodyear’s decision to announce a plant closing as counter productive and a further example of the management’s foolish notion that believes it can shrink a company to prosperity.

“Goodyear talks about a contract that's fair, but cannot bring themselves to acknowledge how all the other stakeholders in the company have benefited from Goodyear's turnaround except our members,” said USW international president Leo Gerard.

“Now they seem committed to stripping away health care benefits from those who made the turnaround possible and to further close plants and abandon the business,” said USW vice president Tom Conway who is serving as the Unions Chairman in the negotiations with Goodyear. Conway further said, “Their foolishness is outweighed only by their greed.”

“How do you talk about saving American manufacturing and at the same time close another facility?" said Conway. “How can this company make claims that cheap imports are hurting them when the truth is they are intent on abandoning their markets, and refusing to stand and fight for their market and the business?”

“When you talk out of both sides of your mouth, sooner or later you end up eating your words,” said USW executive vice president Ron Hoover, the longtime USW-Goodyear coordinator. "The company wants to steal from us the innovations we brought to the table in 2003 and the sacrifices made by all of our members and retirees since.”

The USW also disputes Goodyear's contention that it is capable of making safe, dependable quality products at the plants while its experienced workforce is on strike. “The company’s decision to bring in unskilled and untrained temporary workers from the street is another weak attempt to convince our customers and investors that everything's alright,” said Conway.

In a recent letter to Goodyear employees, the company talked about training management personnel and others to build tires. “Building tires is a highly skilled craft. Apparently the company has forgotten about the disastrous effort at building tires with replacements workers at Bridgestone/Firestone and the 14 million tire recall in 2000. The result of all that was death on our highways, families destroyed and massive lawsuits against the company. I can’t imagine that Goodyear’s shareholders or the tire buying public are interested in another mess like that,” Conway further said.

“Academic and other studies have concluded from that record recall that the conditions surrounding a strike by a skilled workforce and the hiring of inexperienced replacement workers could easily lead to the production of defective tires, resulting in fatalities and injuries.

“Nobody buys Goodyear's new found claim of being a loyal American manufacturing company, either. It's just another run away corporation looking to use our nations lousy international trade deals that worship cheap labor and environmental degradation, to their maximum benefit,” said Conway. “If Goodyear's plan isn’t to abandon factories and plants in our American heartland communities, then why is it paying big dollars to lobby the Chinese government not to reform its oppressive labor law system?”

The USW represents more than 17,000 workers at Goodyear facilities in the U.S. and Canada. On October 5, about 15,000 USW-represented workers at 16 locations in North America went out on strike in an effort to win a fair and equitable contract. Overall, the USW represents more than 850,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. Some 70,000 are employed in the tire, rubber and plastics industry.