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General Tire Proposal Labeled `Blatant Union-Busting'

12 February 1999

USWA Local 850: General Tire's Rejection of Nearly $12 Million Reduction In Steelworkers' Proposal Labeled `Blatant Union-Busting'

    CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 12 -- USWA Local 850 today issued the
following:

    General Tire rejected out of hand Thursday a nearly $12 million reduction
in the United Steelworkers' contract offer -- more than half the $22 million
the company alleges stood between the company's "last, best and final offer"
and a settlement -- leading outraged union officials to accuse the tire maker
of "engaging in blatant union-busting."
    "The company's response, after a measly five minutes of deliberation,"
said Earl Propst, President of USWA Local 850, "makes it absolutely clear that
its goal has always been our unconditional surrender.  They're not about
negotiating.  They're about trying to crush us."
    Propst said the Steelworkers' offer Thursday, which reduced its previous
demands by more than $11.8 million, was one that General Tire could only
refuse if its sole intent is to destroy the Union, since its wages are already
more than $3-an-hour below its competitors'.
    The $11.8 million reduction in the Steelworkers' latest proposal included:

    --  Modifying wage and bonus proposals by more than $9 million below prior
         offers
    --  Lowering fringe benefit proposals by more than $2.8 million

    "These modifications represent more than $11.8 million of movement towards
resolving the company's inflated claims about the economic differences between
us," Propst said, condemning Continental General's German CEO Bernd
Frangenberg of "cynical inhumanity" for slamming the door on negotiations
after admitting recently during a rare visit to the plant floor that "the
labor force helped us to turn it around, no question."
    Propst added, "It's now clear that this dispute has not been about money.
It has been about General Tire destroying every one of us who is willing to
stand up for fair treatment."
    John Sellers, Executive Vice President of the USWA's Rubber and Plastics
Industry Conference said that by slamming the door to negotiations,
"Continental General's German executives have opened the flood gates on a
corporate campaign that will discredit its union-busting in every state and
country where it does business."