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Steelworkers Launch Week of Action To Combat Union-Busting at General Tire

22 June 1999

Steelworkers Launch International Week of Action To Combat Union-Busting at Continental General Tire

               Consumer Awareness Campaign Targets Ford Dealers

    FT. WAYNE, Ind., June 21 -- The United Steelworkers of
America (USWA) today launched a consumer awareness campaign at Ford Motor
Company dealerships in 54 cities as part of an International Week of Action
designed to combat union-busting at Continental General Tire's Charlotte,
North Carolina plant, where 1,450 members of Steelworkers Local 850 have been
on an unfair labor practices strike since last September.
    The German-owned company, which has already been indicted by the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on five counts of violating U.S. labor laws,
contends it has hired 800 "permanent" replacement workers in its Charlotte
plant.
    The Steelworkers' consumer awareness campaign raises the question, "If
quality is Job 1, why is Ford using General Tires?"  General Tires are used as
original equipment on several Ford models.
    The union charged that General's push to meet production shortfalls by
relying on the work of inexperienced replacements and tires built by poverty-
wage workers in Mexico is raising serious questions about the quality of its
tires.
    Signs and large rolling billboards outside Ford dealerships picture a
flattened General Tire and the question: "Should You Trust Tires Made By
Strikebreakers?"
    Citing examples of "scores of defects being returned" and tire stores
"refusing to place orders for General Tires until the strike is resolved," the
Steelworkers called on Ford to urge Continental General to "respect America's
labor laws, as Ford does, instead of union busting."
    At press conferences held throughout the country today, the Steelworkers
charged that Continental General "is savaging the rights of American working
families, despite the fact that union members in Charlotte sacrificed some
$90 million in wages and benefits over the last decade to put General back on
its feet."
    The Steelworkers are also airing radio commercials throughout the country
that raise questions about the quality of General Tires available to Ford, if
they are being produced by inexperienced replacements and impoverished Mexican
workers.
    In addition to replacing the striking workforce with "scabs," Continental
General canceled health care coverage for the Charlotte workers and their
families just before Christmas and is trying to intimidate workers by
conducting illegal surveillance with "security guards" from a company known to
hire convicted felons.
    "We believe that only getting our members back to work will restore the
quality of General Tires," the Steelworkers' radio commercial concludes.
    The USWA's consumer awareness campaign is being supplemented by stepped-up
actions by unions representing Continental workers in other countries, as well
as the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine
and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), the International Metal Workers Federation
(IMF), and IG Metal which called on Continental AG, General's parent company,
to reverse its "blatant violation of the collective bargaining right."
    "The conduct shown in Charlotte," it said in supporting a USWA appeal to
Continental shareholders for compliance with the Core Labor standards of the
International Labor Organization (ILO), "is unworthy of a company which in the
Federal Republic of Germany professes loyalty to the partnership between
management and labor."