BY JOE SWANSON AND GERARDO SÁNCHEZ
LINCOLN, Nebraska - "This strike is to keep the company from steam rolling over what the union has fought for and won over the years," said Jim Eichelberger, a hose trimmer on strike against Goodyear. He is one of 1,800 members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 286 who walked out April 19 at the Northeast Lincoln plant location and at the Goodyear Global Distribution Center (GDC) in the Lincoln Air Park. About 12,500 workers are on strike against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. at nine locations across the country. Another 2,300 USWA members are on strike at Kelly Springfield, a Goodyear subsidiary, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Workers at the union hall and on the picket line report that the strike vote here was more than 1,300 in favor of the strike and 26 against. No union member has crossed the picket line.

"Goodyear makes huge profits and we want a share of their prosperity," Eichelberger explained. He said that Goodyear's first quarter profits were up by 12 percent and that the company's chief executive officer, Samir Gibara, just got a 70 percent raise in salary and stock options.

The company claims it needs concessions to stay competitive. An article in the Lincoln Journal Star quoted John Kornitzer, whose company owns about 396,000 Goodyear shares, as saying, "If Goodyear gives in to the union, the stock prices will fall. Investors know the importance of keeping costs competitive. If they bury the union, Wall Street will applaud."

"They want us to compete with other rubber workers including international workers," said Carl Fedon, another hose trimmer walking the picket line.

Ted Kastle and Rick Shaw, local stewards on the executive board who work in the plant as an interplant trucker and a hose janitor, were at the union hall. They explained that Goodyear wants to cut wages, insurance benefits, pensions, and cost of living allowances. New hires now come in at top pay after their training period, which can take from 4 to 12 weeks to qualify. Goodyear wants to cut new hire wages so that the first year would be 70 percent and it would take 36 months to get the top pay.

Kastle and Shaw also noted the media has inaccurately reported that workers at the plant make an average of $18 per hour. While some tire builders make that wage, the average is between $12-$13, they said. They added that the union is negotiating for job security and is opposed to the company demands on outsourcing. Goodyear wants to use nonunion workers to do daily maintenance, plant improvements, and some assembly line work.

Strike support and solidarity has been strong from the beginning, Kastle said. Support has come from the Nebraska AFL-CIO, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the International Association of Machinists. Truckers who are members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have refused to cross the line.

About half of the workforce at the plant and distribution center have been there less than 10 years, explained Shaw.

Dee Birdwell, a 27-year-old hose finisher at the plant, has worked for Goodyear for three years. Other strikers, both young workers and veterans of past contract fights, grinned and nodded in agreement as she commented, "We are standing tall and proud together and we've got the support of our brothers and sisters in the union against Goodyear."

Gerardo Sánchez is a member of United Transportation Union Local 867 in Des Moines, Iowa. Joe Swanson is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1149 in Perry, Iowa.

BY M.J. RAHN

FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina - "I put 24 years of my life here, the best years of my life. I get five weeks vacation now, but I feel I've earned it. Now they're trying to take away and take away. We're saying `no way.' They can close the place down as far as I'm concerned, before we should take these cuts." This was how Ralph Schmid, who services machines at the Kelly-Springfield tire plant, summed up his feelings on the picket line of the strike of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 959.

Dozens of strikers were picketing in a steady downpour on Sunday, April 27. Their strike began at noon five days earlier, as day shift walked out in a big procession, met by cheering second- and third-shift workers.

Kelly-Springfield was formerly an independent company but is now a subsidiary of Goodyear. The plant employs about 2,500 production workers, 2,100 of whom are union members. Many nonunion workers also walked out when the strike began. Perry Rayburn, a first-shift worker, reported, "All kinds of people started signing union cards at the last minute before we walked out."

Strikers described intensive speedup at the plant. Although the weight workers handle is less than it used to be, strikers pointed out that the pace of work has increased alongside advances in machinery and technology. Schmid said, "We produce 61,000 tires a day on a bad day. We've produced as much as 67,000. They're stretching you out now, through modifying machinery and speeding-up production. They've increased the quotas to the point where you're working full out and still can't keep up." The tire builders work on piece rate. Everyone else is on hourly pay.

Perry Thomas, a tire builder with 21 years seniority, said, "We've got some new machinery now, but mostly they retooled old machines. Some of the 40-year-old machines are producing twice as fast as they were made to. They wanted us to reduce scrap to 0.99 percent. We did that within a month. Then they said, `We want it down to 0.89.' We did that. And now, they want to take away." The workers are primarily on strike over the company's proposal to establish a seven-day schedule, which would eliminate overtime pay on the weekends; a two-tier wage schedule for new hires; cuts in vacation time; and increased co-payments for medical insurance.

The Fayetteville Observer-Times reported April 24 that a U.S. district court ruled to deny a temporary restraining order by the company to halt the strike.

Numerous workers described the early years of the plant when there was a height and weight requirement, 5'8" and 150 lbs., to do the backbreaking work of building tires. That policy was later scrapped as discriminatory.

Many workers said they were prepared to stay out a long time, but also seemed confident in their ability to keep production to a minimum. Schmid expressed the opinion, "Before long, if they want some tires getting out, they're going to have to start talking to somebody."

M.J. Rahn is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees in Greensboro, North Carolina.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home