Goodyear, Union Agree

7-25-67 [handwritten]

AKRON, Ohio (UPI)— Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the United Rubber Workers Union (URW) reached agreement on a new three-year contract Monday.

Goodyear is the fourth of the “big five” rubber companies to come to terms in the 95-day strike, longest in the industry’s history. Negotiations continued with Uniroyal Inc., which has 5,000 employes at plants in Naugatuck.

Financial terms in the settlement followed those reached in agreements between the union and General Tire & Rubber Co., B. F. Goodrich Co. and the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

Ratification votes on the Goodyear accord will be held Thursday.

URW locals in Woodburn, Ind., Miami, Okla., and Akron ratified the Goodrich contract Sunday. Reports on votes at seven other plants had not been received by the union’s international headquarters here.

The general pact was officially ratified Saturday when workers in Waco, Tex., added their vote of approval to earlier balloting by Local 9 in Akron.

Local 7 in Akron was to vote Monday night on the Firestone pact.

The agreements all give production workers hourly wage increases of 43 cents over the next three years. They also provide supplemental unemployment benefit plans giving laid-off workers 80 per cent of their regular pay.

Goodyear and Uniroyal employ the majority of the 76,000 men who were idled when the 94-day-old strike was at its height. Some 22,000 are to strike at Uniroyal and 21,000 at Goodyear.

Both General and Goodrich are in process of resuming production. Firestone hoped to begin preparations for start-up as soon as the contract was ratified.

Under the old contracts, tire workers averaged $3.68 an hour and non-tire workers averaged $2.68. A pay raise differential between the two was eliminated in the Goodrich and Firestone agreements.