Union, Uniroyal Reach
Tentative Settlement
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Ratification Is Expected Over Weekend
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — The longest strike in the history of the rubber industry ended Wednesday when the United Rubber Workers Union and Uniroyal Inc. reached a tentative agreement at Cincinnati on a new three-year contract.
Previous settlements had been reached with other members of the industry’s “Big Five” and the Uniroyal agreement was in line with those settlements.
The agreements provide a wage increase of 43 cents an hour over three years, plus an additional 10 cents an hour for skilled workers the first year. The top hourly rate is now $3.88.
The settlements also call for 80 per cent of normal pay through supplemental benefits for laid off workers, an improved pension plan, increased company – paid life insurance and more vacation time.
Expect Ratification
A Uniroyal spokesman said in New York that the contract covering some 51,670 workers throughout the country will be signed Friday and that ratification votes by union members are expected over the weekend.
Naugatuck URW officials indicated last night they expect the local membership to ratify the three – year contract.
Thomas Nelligan, labor relations director in Naugatuck, said this morning that the 5,500 employes will be advised when they will be wanted back to work. He said it will take about two days to “get things organized and get the plant back into prodduction.”
Nelligan said the plant is presently in the middle of its annual vacation period and that employes would not normally be working at this time.
He said about 1,000 employes have volunteered to come back
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Uniroyal Strike Settled
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to work immediately. Some $2 million in vaacation pay was distributed to employes earlier this week.
URW locals started voting Wednesday on the agreement with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. which was reached Monday in Cincinnati.
The URW struck Uniroyal The Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. and the B.F. Goodrich Co. when their contracts ran out at midnight April 20.
Goodyear’s contract also expired at the same time, but the union continued working at the company’s plants on a day-to-day basis until July 13.
The General Tire & Rubber Co., whose contract ran out May 15, was added to the strikebound list June 21.
Other Uniroyal plants are in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Calif.; Chicopee Falls, Mass.; Prividence and Woonsocket, R.I.; Passaic, N. J.; Opelika, Ala.; Eau Clair, Wis.; Washington, Michawaka and Indianapolis, Ind., and Painesville, Ohio.
Decline
The vacation pay is supplementing the $15 a week the union has been paying its members on strike duty.
The union had been paying $25 a week during the first two weeks of the strike, but had to cut down on the payments as the walkout dragged on.
Merchants in Beacon Falls and Seymour said yesterday there had been some decline in business.
Businessmen in Beacon Falls have been feeling the pinch more acutely than those in Seymour.
“The strike has definitely affected business here,” Albert
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‘Too Long’
In Seymour, father south of the Naugatuck rubber plant, the strike is being felt, but not as strongly as in Beacon Falls.
“Business has dropped off some,” John Gregos, owner and operator of a grocery store at 335 South Main St., said. “The effect has been slight, though, because there are not as many Uniroyal people down here as there are north.”
Peter Klarides, part owner of Klarides’ K Supermarket, 271 Bank St., had a different idea.
“This strike has gone three months too long,” Klarides said. “I would say it has definitely not done us any good.”
Klarides, who manages the sale of appliances in a store that also handles groceries, said the sale of large, luxury items such as appliances, had dropped off because of the strike.
He said he didn’t believe the sale of groceries had been as much hit by the walkout as more expensive items.
“And I don’t think the vacation pay the Uniroyal people are getting this week will help things,” Klarides said, “because that money will be going toward mortgages.”