As Goodyear Admits Strike is Hurting, Army Explores Presidential Back-to-Work Order
Editor's note: On December 22nd, 2006, the USW and Goodyear announced they had reached a tentative agreement. On December 28, 2006, the contract was ratified by a two-to-one margin of the 10,000 members who voted. The agreement establishes a $1 billion retiree benefits trust to replace the company's $1.2 billion obligation. The company has the option of paying $300 million of the $1 billion in the form of shares of Goodyear common stock. The agreement allows the company to close the Tyler, TX plant one year from now, though it stipulates that any work that would have been done at Tyler not be outsourced, but done at other USW plants.
As 15,000 Steelworkers (USW) members entered their third month of striking Goodyear Tire and Rubber, company claims about the strike’s impact seemed to crack wide open.
Since the beginning of the strike, Goodyear has claimed that tires produced by its plants in China (where workers typically make 42 cents per hour) have offset the costs of the strike. The company has also claimed that scabs have kept U.S. production at over half capacity.
Despite these claims, Mike Zielinski of the USW’s Strategic Campaigns Department said that the company is now admitting that the strike is costing at least $35 million each week. Business analysts with J.P. Morgan further estimate that Goodyear is currently running at 10 percent of its pre-strike capacity.
IMPACT ON WAR
At least one big Goodyear customer is feeling the strike’s effects: the U.S. Army. Rattled by a 35 percent drop in the supply of tires for its Humvee vehicles, military spokespeople recently claimed that a shortage was looming for its forces. Besides Humvees, Goodyear also provides tires to military aircraft and other vehicles.
Duncan Hunter, chair of the House of Representatives’ armed services committee, stated that the army was exploring the possibility of a presidential intervention into the strike. Under the Taft-Hartley Act, the president has the power to declare a national emergency and issue an anti-strike injunction—a sweeping power that was last used in the 1978 coal miners’ strike.
“The threat that George Bush might use Taft-Hartley to force the Goodyear workers back to work to produce tires for the war machine can not be taken lightly,” observed Michael Eisenscher, national coordinator of U.S. Labor Against the War. “Recall that Bush was only to ready to use the Taft-Hartley hammer against the West Coast dock workers during the 2002 employer-imposed lockout. The war has provided cover for an unprecedented corporate assault on the standard of living and working conditions of the vast majority of American workers.”
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Hunter reportedly tried to broker a meeting between the USW and Goodyear in mid-December, but the company denied it was having production problems. Goodyear did, however, agree to return to negotiations December 18 for the first time since talks broke down on November 17.
SPREADING SUPPORT
Strikers and supporters picketed 150 Goodyear tire retail stores throughout the United States and Canada on December 16 as part of a nationally coordinated day of action.
The union is planning a second national day of store pickets and solidarity actions for February 3. A January 19 rally at Goodyear’s headquarters in Akron, Ohio is also in the works. The union is organizing bus rides for strike supporters from Detroit and other areas close to Akron.
Meanwhile, local strike supporters have been showing solidarity at the local level. In early December, Teamster Nichelle Fulmore from Lumberton, North Carolina brought Goodyear picketers some much- needed support—and food.
Said Fulmore, “I took turkeys to the Steelworkers yesterday and I can say I was inspired when I left that line. After being out of work for 11 weeks, I didn’t think the atmosphere was going to be good, but I was totally wrong.
“These union members were in good spirits because they know they have to fight in order to just hold on to what they have. One steelworker told my children that he was fighting for them.”
For more information about getting involved with strike solidarity, call the USW at 877-511-8792, email
, or go to www.usw.org/goodyear.
