Uniroyal Talks Due Wednesday
4-24-67 [handwritten date at top]
NAUGATUCK — Negotiations between the striking United Rubber Workers and Uniroyal, Inc. will resume Wednesday morning in Cincinnati, local union spokesmen reported Sunday night.
Pickets at the three Locals, 45, 218 and 308, are scheduled to resume their strike posts today at 6 a.m. and continue throughout the day in two-hour shifts.
Joseph Rzeszutek, president of URW Local 218, chemical workers, has called meetings of his group today at 2 and 7 p.m. in Union Hall, Curtis St., to report to the local on the contract negotiations he attended last week in Cincinnati.
George Froelich, president of Local 45, will report on negotiations to the local executive committee this morning at 9:30. President of Local 308, Edward Alves, reported he met with his executive committee Saturday evening for a briefing on contract talks.
The three local presidents, along with three additional policy-making members of Local 45, will attend the national URW policy-making session in Cincinnati Tuesday evening in preparation for Wednesday morning’s resumption of negotiations.
Due to its large, over 4,000 membership, Local 45 is allowed three policy-committee members, making it the largest represented group attending the session. The three committee members, John Butler, James Nardello and Lionel Turner, along with Froelich give Local 45 a four-man team, out of a total of 31 national policy committee members.
Contract talks between URW and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. will resume this morning in Arkon, Ohio, but no negotiations for any of the three strike-bound firms are set before Wednesday.
The strike, which has idled some 50,000 members of the URW, was called at midnight Thursday against the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., and the B.F. Goodrich Co., both of Akron, and Uniroyal, Inc.
The three firms produce half the nation’s rubber products.
The strike spread to one Goodyear plant in North Chicago, Ill., Friday when 500 workers walked off the job, but work continued at other Goodyear plants under the old contract which was extended on a day-to-day basis.
The other member of the industry’s ‘Big Five,’ the General Tire and Rubber Co., is negotiating toward a May 15 contract deadline. In Akron, 1,800 general employes have been idled by a two-week-old wildcat walkout.
Talks will resume Wednesday morning with Firestone in Cleveland, and B. F. Goodrich in Columbus.
Higher wages and a guaranteed minimum wage were the major issues in the negotiations. The union sought payments for laid-off workers amounting to 93 per cent of their regular eranings.