**Date:** 6/23/54
**Source:** AKRON, OHIO (UPI)
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Signs of optimism were apparent today in the 90-day-old rubber industry strike.
There also were further signs of the walkout’s growing financial toll, as the B. F. Goodrich Co. reported its second quarter net income was down 92.5 per cent.
Goodrich and General Tire & Rubber Co. reached agreement with the United Rubber Workers (URW) last week.
Uniroyal, Inc., of Naugatuck, Conn., Firestone Tire & Rubber and Goodyear Tire & Rubber continued negotiations with the URW.
Among the hopeful signs was approval of the general three-year contract by Local 9 here. Despite a heated feud over the method of voting, the union’s executive board ruled Wednesday that a four-to-one favorable vote–first by show of hands and then a standing vote–would be upheld.
Production in some departments at the General plant here resumed last midnight. The company said it expected to be going full steam sometime next week. Local 312 in Waco, Tex., will vote on the same agreement Saturday.
Akron Local 5 will vote on the Goodrich agreement Sunday and locals at eight other Goodrich plants also were expected to vote during the weekend.
Industry spokesmen reported growing hopes other settlements would come soon.
At Uniroyal one official described it as an “optimistic but cautious” attitude.
Future settlements were expected to follow substantially the same pattern set in the General and Goodrich agreements.
The contracts provide all employes with wage increases of 43 cents over three years and an 80 per cent supplemental unemployment program.
The Goodrich agreement eliminated a pay raise differential between tire and none-tire workers and the URW was expected to ask the other firms to do the same. Non-tire workers were not involved at General.
Goodrich reported its net income fell to $1,007,732 or 11 cents a share from $13,403,086 for the second quarter last year. Sales for the quarters were off 10 per cent.
Goodrich was the first of the “Big Five” firms to release figures showing the nearly full impact of the strike. Goodrich plants have been closed for all but three weeks of the second quarter.
Firestone, Uniroyal and Goodrich were struck April 20, General on June 21, and Goodyear on July 6.
At its peak the strike had idled 76,000 men.