Drop that tire: Goodyear workers go on strike
At 1 PM EST yesterday, the United Steelworkers union terminated its contract with Goodyear, causing 15,000 employees to walk off the job and subsequently shut down 16 plants in the U.S. and Canada. The strike came after negotiations between the two parties had stalled after several months of talks.Goodyear's contract proposal aimed to make the tire manufacturer more competitive in the global marketplace by reducing the costs associated with maintaining a large workforce. Most of the proposed cuts were focused on health care and pension spending, with an emphasis on worker productivity.
The union cited that substantial cuts were made to wages and other worker's benefits in 2003, and that further reductions were unacceptable.
In the meantime, Goodyear has enacted a backup plan that will reduce the harmful effects of the strike on its customers.
[Source: CNN Money]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carl 8:54AM (10/06/2006)
I wonder what kind of bacvkup plan can it be? They have a suplus tire stock pile stashed in case of emergencies?
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Brutus 9:06AM (10/06/2006)
I had no idea this was going on. Sounds similar to the situation with the big 2.5.
Nice pic of the OSU Horseshoe - Go Buckeyes!
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Glenn 9:25AM (10/06/2006)
I hope the car companies don't substitute FIRESTONE tires. "ka-boom" "ker-ash".
I haven't bought Firestone tires or a car with Firestone tires since the debacle of the Firestone 500 tires on my 1975 Dodge Charger bought used in 1980, and on which I had two nice orange-sized lumps suddenly appear on the rear tires within days of each other in 1982 when I was a VERY poor, married college student.
It busted the bank to buy two cheap all-season Mohawk tires for it and I watched the front tires like a HAWK until I could afford to replace them too. The tires had been recalled, it was too late for me to take advantage of the recall, obviously the prior owner (who lived in Detroit, ironically) didn't know or care.
I never forgot, and never forgave. Then FIRESTONE did the little "Ford Exploder" trick and I was proved right in my caution all those years, wasn't I?
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Paul 11:06AM (10/06/2006)
fire them, close the plant and move production to China
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peptidbond 11:44AM (10/06/2006)
Who cares about Goodyear. Look at the picture. That is the OSU horseshoe in the background. I didn't know the autoblog staff were secretly Buckeye's fans. Sweet. Go Bucks!
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Finished Law School 12:14PM (10/06/2006)
More proof that unions are too ignorant to be part of current society.
Fire them all - there are millions of people willing to work harder for less money in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.
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Paul 12:35PM (10/06/2006)
welcome to the free market. there should be no reason why GY should not be able to fire all of the workers and move production to China. In order to compete in a world economy US workers will have to work for $2 an hour(China auto worker pay). The dopes in congress want to raise the minimum wage. How will the US be able to compete then. You cant have it both ways. Cant have high wages and be competitive with the Chinese. Its clear that they will win and the US will lose.
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Shing 5:06PM (10/06/2006)
GY can't compete on volume when Kumho are selling their import (from China) for 1/2 the cost. I am not even sure if they can afford 15k workers in today's market.
This will be interesting to see, if the union can afford to lose this or if GY can. In the end I think they will come up with a compromise and both side declare victory.
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Richard Warren 1:26PM (10/06/2006)
Some great thought process from Paul and Finished (but never graduated from) Law School Keep up the good work.
Hey Paul when your wage drops to $2 bucks per hour let us know how well you are competing. Sorry, I forgot they don't even pay that at the drive-up, Oh, I forgot, the new Asian owner fired you.
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Dirk Dundenburg 2:19PM (10/06/2006)
We should also farm out ambulance-chasing lawyers to Asia and India, I mean, why pay them 100's of dollars an hour when we could just get the work done by someone overseas for a smidgen of that. Think of the savings we could reap in insurance costs. Heck, farm everything out now and be done with it, you'll soon be dancing soon enough for your Asian masters.
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Josh 3:55PM (10/06/2006)
GO BUCKS! Great picture of the blimp over the horseshoe here at THE Ohio State Unviersity.
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Slicker 7:38PM (10/06/2006)
>We should also farm out ambulance-chasing lawyers to >Asia and India, I mean, why pay them 100's of dollars an >hour when we could just get the work done by someone >overseas for a smidgen of that.
Sounds like a great idea. Just let me know once it takes 7 years of higher learning to 'work' on an assembly line, or when a high school diploma is enough to be admitted to the bar.
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mary 2:13AM (10/18/2006)
I fancy myself pretty erudite but I would not presume to think I could run my husbands tire machine just because I have an advanced degree. Interestingly enough Goodyear seems to be applying that convoluted thinking by using office workers and managers to attempt to run the line in the workers absence. Hince the 3 fingers that are now part of someones tire. No Joke. Happened in Topeka on Friday.
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Earnest Rice 7:15PM (10/28/2006)
Goodyear has or had a good many tires on hand. They can take the tire molds and move them to plants in Centrial
America. Hope you don't buy one now: they will be scrap.
Goodyear needs to learn quality = more tires.
What makes me maid is that they want to take from our
retired people. The retied worked for it and Goodyear
agreed to it.
Goodyear will get back up but only with good workers. Then they will screw it up again. Ernie from TN.
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