In October 1946, the first tire rolled off the production line at the BF Goodrich factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Only a matter of months later, in 1947, the workers at the factory became union members, joining a forerunner of the United Rubber Workers, which later became part of the USW.
Since then, union membership and tire production in Tuscaloosa have gone hand in hand. Today, despite operating in a right-to-work (for less) state, more than 99 percent of the Local 351L membership pays dues, making the local a strong and active partner in the company’s success.
“We support this company,” said Joe Taylor, a 31-year employee and Local 351L division chair. “And we support doing the right thing every day.”
For Taylor, that mission includes providing a safe and healthy work environment, protecting workers from unfair treatment, ensuring good wages and benefits, and honoring the 70-year history of union activism in Tuscaloosa.
“I tell people, ‘you’re here because somebody who came before you did something for you,’ ” Taylor said. “ ‘Now it’s time for you to stand up.’ ”
That approach has led Local 351L to a near-perfect membership record, with only seven freeloaders out of a union work force of 1,150, as well as a position of power at the factory that helps provide security both for labor and management.
“The union helps to run this plant,” said former Local 351L President Mark Williams.
Working together
Williams has seen labor-management relations at the facility evolve from contentious to cooperative over his 41 years there, improving the way of life for workers while boosting efficiency and product quality for the company.
“Our goal has always been to keep people employed and to keep the company successful,” he said. “We still have problems, but we work on them together.”
John T. Camp, the company’s labor relations manager in Tuscaloosa, has seen the situation from both sides, having worked in a number of union jobs across the plant before joining management.
“We’ve worked hard to build this relationship,” Camp said of the productive labor-management partnership.
The factory includes about 40 acres of workspace under its roof, and about 12,000 tires go through its doors each day. Even with constant upgrades in technology and increased automation, each tire passes through human hands at every step in production.
Regardless of the final product, tire building in Tuscaloosa follows the same basic steps. The first involves a tire builder wrapping multiple layers of rubber around a drum to form what is known as a carcass.
Steel belts and other pieces are then added to form a “green tire,” which moves on to the curing process, where the product takes its final shape.
“Building high-quality tires is a skill that requires years of training and experience to perfect,” Camp said. “For some of these folks, this is an art form.”
Quality control key
One aspect of tire production in Tuscaloosa on which both union members and management see eye to eye is quality control. Inspectors look at the tires throughout the process to see that every product stamped with the BF Goodrich (BFG) label is flawless.
Once curing is complete, workers thoroughly inspect and test the tires for flaws. Workers inflate and spin each tire, trimming excess rubber and simulating road conditions to ensure proper balance and performance.
“They’re trained to know what to look for,” said Local 351L Treasurer Michael Clark, explaining that the workers responsible for quality control attend three-week courses to become experts in the process.
The inspectors in Tuscaloosa even cut tires apart every now and then to study cross-sections under magnifying glasses. Even a small defect, such as misaligned lettering on a logo, will cause a batch to be scrapped.
“We don’t take any chances,” Clark said.
Barcodes embedded in each tire allow workers to track every piece of information about the product, from the origin of the rubber to the date and time that the tire made it to each part of the production line.
Amy Nell Green was conducting visual inspections and preparing tires for shipment to customers during a recent USW@Work visit to the factory. “I check each one to make sure every tire is ready to go,” she said.
Between 10 percent and 20 percent of the tires produced in Tuscaloosa are for placement on new vehicles. The rest are for use as spares or replacements.
Producing a diverse array of products has helped the factory weather difficult economic conditions. Plants that produce tires only for new vehicles are more susceptible to downturns in the market, Clark explained.
“If they’re not selling cars, you’re not making tires,” Clark said.
The workers believe so strongly in the products they produce that most of them make sure to drive vehicles outfitted with BFG tires.
“People here are proud to say they work at BF Goodrich,” said Dori Hughes, a 29-year employee.
Clark, who has worked at the BFG factory for 13 years, drives a Ford F-150 with BFG’s all-terrain KO2 tires, one of the company’s best-selling models.
The popularity of that product has helped the company withstand an onslaught of unfair imports from China and elsewhere in recent years, a problem that has plagued the U.S. rubber industry.
Confronting trade problems
Addressing the trade imbalance with overseas competitors is one issue on which Local 351L members have been particularly active.
For decades, the USW has been laser-focused on ensuring a level playing field for its members. The member-driven Rapid Response program has been a large part of that effort, which paid off in 2015 when the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a decision that imposed tariffs on passenger vehicle and light-truck tires from China.
Those tariffs leveled the playing field not just for the workers in Tuscaloosa, but also for rubber and tire workers across North America.
George Montgomery, who has worked at the plant for 31 years, has traveled to Washington, D.C., with his USW sisters and brothers to lobby Congress on fair trade issues.
“I tell them we can outperform anybody if we’re given a level playing field,” Montgomery said. “The USW stood up and fought for us in Washington, and we are benefitting from that.”
About 200 new workers have been hired in Tuscaloosa since the 2015 tariff ruling, said Local 351L Division Chair Stanley Shinholster.
“It’s a never-ending struggle,” Local 351L President Brandon Hamner said of the fight for fair trade. “A lot of workers don’t understand the attacks that we’re under.”
The USW difference
BFG produces some of the best tires in the world in large part because the USW’s presence in a factory means workers have the time and energy to focus on the well-being of their customers as well as their own.
In addition to passenger vehicle and light-truck tires, the Tuscaloosa facility produces lines of specialty and off-road tires.
Local 351L member Brian James, who has worked at the plant for 12 years, said that even with such advanced technology, tire building can be physically demanding, making health and safety a top priority for Local 351L.
“Of course, people can make mistakes and get hurt sometimes,” James said. “But that’s why it’s important to have the union. Without the union, there’s nobody to stand up for you when something goes wrong.”
Over the years, as the USW’s influence over health and safety has grown and automation has increased, jobs have become less dangerous and taxing, Hughes said.
“We have better ergonomics, a better work environment,” she said. “A lot of that has to do with our safety programs. I don’t know where we would be if we didn’t have the union.”
Community ties
The sisterhood and brotherhood of Local 351L is strengthened by the fact that so many members have had family and friends working side by side over the years.
Local 351L member Scott Dockery has worked at the factory for 31 years. His son was hired on in February.
Hughes, the local’s financial secretary and first woman division chair, met her husband, Dave, at the factory. They’ve been married for 18 years.
Those strong bonds have for decades extended into the community as well. The local raised more than $4,000 this summer for a community cancer charity, as well as nearly $5,000 for relief after a series of hurricanes slammed the nearby Gulf Coast.
“Our local is part of this community,” Taylor said. “We do everything we can to help.”
Local 351L is also in the process of constructing a new USW Institute for Career Development (ICD) training center on a plot behind the local union hall, across the street from the BFG factory. The center is scheduled to open in January 2018.
The ICD, part of a joint labor-management program, offers workers a range of classes in which they can learn new job skills or brush up on old ones.
While the nearby University of Alabama is by far the region’s largest economic driver, BFG’s 1,500 employees pump an estimated $145 million into the region’s economy each year, Hamner said.
Diversity and solidarity
None of the work that Local 351L members do inside or outside the plant gates would be as effective without a strong local union. That strength begins with having such a large percentage of dues-paying members.
Taylor credits the local’s long history in the community, as well as a strong multi-media orientation program for new hires, for that level of success.
“We get about four hours to explain the benefits of the union, the history of the union, the history of the labor movement,” Taylor said. “A lot of young people don’t realize that unions built the middle class in this country.”
Hamner said the local’s diversity and solidarity have been the keys to the success that USW members and their families have enjoyed in Tuscaloosa for the past 70 years.
“Diversity is one of the key issues in building solidarity,” he said. “Regardless of our skin color, our age, our gender – we are all different, but we know we’re all in this together.”