6, 1967
‘Realistic, Logical’: 5-6-67
URW Vows Fight For Contract Goals
Akron, O.—The Rubber Workers, on strike against three of the Big 4 rubber companies at 39 plants in 36 cities, have a bargaining program that is “realistic, logical and attainable” and the union will continue to fight to get it, URW Pres. Peter Bommarito said here.
Contract talks continued as 50,000 pickets kept marching at plants of Firestone, Goodrich and Uniroyal, formerly the U.S. Rubber Co., but no immediate settlement seemed in sight, the union reported.
The strikes started Apr. 21. Employees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., fourth major tire firm, continued to work on a day-to-day basis without a contract. Workers at a Goodyear hose plant in North Chicago, Ill., struck briefly, but returned to their jobs after visiting other Goodyear locations.
Meanwhile, a Goodyear progress report to company executives on the negotiations was made public. It said the company had offered a two-year package of 23.5 cents an hour for tire plant workers, 18 cents for others.
Firestone and Uniroyal acknowledged that they had made similar offers.
Bommarito had said previously, without spelling out the terms, that the wage offer was inadequate. He called the lower offer for non-tire employes “an attempt to divide the union.”
The Goodrich report said the firm had offered “liberal” improvements in the supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) program, but Bommarito said the “offer” was in the area of a fraction of a cent.
The URW has asked the Big 4 firms to make the SUB program the base for a new Full Employment Earnings Program (FEEP) giving laid-off workers 92.5 percent of their regular wages. Bommarito put the cost of FEEP at 2 to 3 cents an hour.
Goodrich said it offered to give one-year employes two weeks of vacation. It now takes three years of work to get two weeks of vacation.
Management said it offered to make numerous changes in contract language, but Bommarito said satisfactory working conditions are a major objective of the strikers—perhaps more important than substantial wage increases, with neither yet achieved.
Talks have started between the URW and the General Tire Co., fifth major firm. The contract deadline is May 15 but no progress was reported there, either.
The companywide strikes are the first since 1965, when the Uniroyal chain was shut down for six days. The same firm was closed in 1959, along with Firestone and Goodrich.
Current strikes involve wages, vacations, holidays and working conditions. Agreements on pensions, health and welfare are up for renegotiation next August.