Public Employee Press

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DC 37 marches with striking Goodyear workers

DC 37 activists joined striking workers at a rally Dec. 1 to protest Goodyear’s plan to cut wages, slash health-care and retirement benefits, and eliminate jobs in the United States.

“What Goodyear is doing is wrong and does nothing but hurt our sisters and brothers in the labor movement,” said DC 37 Treasurer and Local 1407 President Maf Misbah Uddin at the rally outside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where NASCAR was holding its annual banquet. Goodyear, the world’s largest producer of tires, is the exclusive provider of NASCAR’s tires.

“I urge everyone to abstain from buying Goodyear products until they come to their senses and agree to a fair contract,” Uddin said. “They have failed to bargain in good faith and they should be held accountable for that.”

Some 15,000 members of the United Steelworkers Union in 16 North American plants went out on strike Oct. 5 as Goodyear pushed for concessions and a plant closing in the current round of bargaining. Workers are outraged over the company’s hard line because union concessions a few years ago contributed to a $1 billion turnaround in the company’s bottom line.

“We helped the company when they were near bankruptcy,” said James Merriner, a Goodyear workers from Marysville, Ohio, at the rally. “Now Goodyear is on their feet and rather than sharing the rewards of their success with us, they have come after more, wanting to shift more jobs overseas,” he said.

Despite the company’s healthy bottom line, Goodyear wants to eliminate retiree health care coverage and hire temporary employees in the United States. It seeks to shut down the Tyler plant in Texas, eliminating the jobs of 1,100 workers while shifting their work to China, where full-time workers receive 56 cents an hour. The Tyler plant would be the third U.S. Goodyear plant to be closed in four years.