**Date:** 6-7-67
**Source:** Wall Street Journal
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By a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter
AKRON – A single-package wage, pension and welfare proposal estimated to cost more than 60 cents an hours over three years was received by the United Rubber Workers Union from the five major rubber companies.
The contract proposal, calling for pay boosts totaling 38 cents an hour for tire workers and 31 cents an hour for nonlier workers, is being studied by URW negotiators. ‘A settlement of the 37-day strike against three of the concerns, if it comes, is considered unlikely before tomorrow. Acceptance of the proposal would almost surely be followed by price boosts on tires and other rubber products.
The contract-renewal plan, lumping together for the first time in the industry pension and welfare benefits with wage increases was announced by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Uniroyal Inc. Monday. B. F. Goodrich Co. and General Tire & Rubber Co. joined the move yesterday.
Strike Began April 21
About 61,000 URW members have been on strike since April 21 against Firestone, Uniroyal and B.F. Goodrich, following expiration of a two-year wage contract. Production has continued, however, at Goodyear’s plants, whose contracts also expired April 20, and at two General Tire plants, where contracts run out May 15.
Present three-year pension and welfare contracts aren’t due to expire until September. But the time proximity of the two rounds of negotiations was said to be a block to a wage agreement alone. Evidence increased last week, however, that the union had become less adamant about keeping the two contracts separate.
A three-year contract, as proposed by the companies, rather than a two-year offer, might still be an obstacle to an early settlement.
The proposed pay boosts for tire workers would break down to 16 cents an hour the first year with 11 cent increases in each of the two succeeding years. For other production workers, pay rates would be lifted 13 cents in the first year and 9 cents in each of the two following years.
Average hourly wages of tire workers is about $3.69 and those of other production workers about $2.68. The proposed package, including pension and welfare benefits, would amount to an hourly cost increase of about 5%.
Previous Offer Rejected
An earlier proposal covering only wages was made by Goodrich, Uniroyal and Firestone prior to the strike it called for tire-worker pay boosts of 23 1/2 cents an hour and increases for other workers of 18 cents an hour over two years. Peter Bommarito, URW international president, put these boosts at 2 1/2% and termed them inadequate.
Under the new proposal, the companies would lift pension payments, both for new and present retirees, to $5.25 a month for each year of service, an increase of $2 from the present $3.25. Improvements are also included for insurance and vacations as well as broader pay-boost differentials for skilled tradesmen – workers who perform maintenance tasks on rubber goods-production equipment. This had been a key issue in the URW contract demands.
Further liberalization is also included in the contract proposal for supplementary unemployment benefit payments, another basic issue in the union’s demands. The amount wasn’t disclosed, but it is understood that it fell short of the URW bid. This demand was an integral part of the union’s ‘full employment’ program for gaining a form of guaranteed annual wage. The union sought to raise supplementary payments sufficiently to produce laid-off workers 95% of their normal straight-time pay. Present payments provide for up to 65% of such pay.