Cleveland – Some of the 14,000 striking Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. workers began voting Wednesday on a proposed labor deal reached with the world’s third-largest tiremaker while others studied the pact and prepared to vote today.
Larry Watchorn, 49, a 22-year Goodyear employee who voted on the deal in Lincoln, Neb., said he believes the agreement will pass.
“People want to get back to work. It’ll be the best deal they can get,” Watchorn said.
Goodyear has said it will discuss details of the tentative deal only if it is ratified.
However, the plan would allow the tiremaker to close a plant in Tyler, Texas, but not immediately. It provides for a one- year transition period in which the workers would have the opportunity to take retirement buyouts. The plant employs 1,100 workers who make unprofitable wholesale private-label tires.
United Steelworkers union members in 10 states, including about 1,400 laid-off and inactive workers, were scheduled to vote by today on the three-year agreement reached last week.
Workers at four Goodyear plants in Ontario, Canada, where about 400 union members have been on strike, do not have a tentative agreement but will vote anyway on a separate company proposal, a Goodyear spokesman said.
One key issue during the nearly 3-month-old strike had been over a company-proposed health-care fund for retirees.
Goodyear ultimately agreed to put $1 billion into the fund for retired union workers’ medical benefits, which was higher than the company’s previous $660 million offer but less than the union’s call for roughly double that amount.
Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said he had no specifics on the Steelworkers’ vote. Goodyear has said it will hold a conference call in January for investors, financial analysts and media to discuss specifics of the new contract if it is ratified by the USW membership.
The company has said the tentative pact would help the Akron, Ohio-based company significantly reduce its costs and allow it to be more globally competitive.
Jack Hefner, president of USW Local 2L in Akron, which represents 470 workers at a racing-tire plant and a rubber-mixing factory, said the local’s leadership is not recommending which way to vote.
One worry among workers is the retiree health fund, he said.
“The concern is that unless additional money is put into it, that eventually that money is going to run out. A $1 billion fund is a lot of money, but today’s medical costs can eat that up pretty quick,” Hefner said.
In Lincoln, USW Local 286L officials said Goodyear wants to use buyouts to reduce the workforce of 1,050 active or laid-off employees who make hoses and belts to about 220. That had some younger workers uncertain.
USW headquarters spokesman Wayne Ranick said details about vote totals likely would be released tonight.
