Tire Bargaining Underway

The USW reached a tentative agreement in late January on a new contract covering about 1,400 members of Local 752L at the Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. plant in Texarkana, Ark.

The agreement with Cooper marked the beginning of a year that will see USW members negotiate another agreement with BF Goodrich/Michelin.

The USW bargaining committee is expecting to open negotiations in the spring with BFG/Michelin on contracts covering about 1,800 workers at rubber and tire plants in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Fort Wayne, Ind.

The agreement with BFG/Michelin is scheduled to expire on July 27. Those talks will take place in Knoxville, Tenn.

“These contracts have provided good-paying jobs with strong benefits and protections for union members for decades, and we look forward to working with the company to make sure that continues for the next generation,” said Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson, a former rubber worker who chairs the union’s Rubber/Plastic Industry Council and is the USW’s lead negotiator with several major tire producers.

Johnson said the union has worked hard in recent years and will continue to seek stronger safety and health protections at tire plants and to fight unfair and illegal trading practices in the industry, particularly in China.

“American tire makers work as hard as anyone and can compete with anyone in the world, as long as the playing field is level and they get a fair shot,” Johnson said. “Our job as a union is to fight for more than just good wages and benefits – we need to make sure that the playing field remains level and that all workers are treated with dignity and fairness.”

In addition to the Texarkana plant, the USW also represents about 65 members at a Cooper Tire mixing operation in Clarksdale, Miss., and about 1,000 members at a Cooper facility in Findlay, Ohio. The Clarksdale agreement is set to expire at the end of February 2019, and the Findlay agreement expires in 2020.

Overall, the USW represents about 18,000 workers in the tire industry, including about 7,200 workers at Goodyear plants in Topeka, Kan.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Danville, Va.; Gadsden, Ala.; and Akron, Ohio; about 4,500 Bridgestone-Firestone workers at plants in Akron, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Russellville, Ark.; La Vergne, Tenn.; Warren County, Tenn., and Bloomington, Ill.; and about 2,000 workers at Titan Tire plants in Des Moines, Iowa, Freeport, Ill., and Bryan, Ohio.

The USW’s contract with Titan expires in 2021, and the union’s contracts with Goodyear and Bridgestone-Firestone run through July 2022.

 

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