Striking Rubber Workers, Five Companies May Agree on a Single Package Contract
By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
CLEVELAND—Contract negotiations between the United Rubber Workers Union and five major rubber companies may take a long step toward a settlement this week as sentiment appeared to grow for linking pension and welfare improvements into a single package with wages and other benefits.
This would be a departure from previous industry policy of keeping the usual two-year master wage contracts separate from the longer term pension and welfare agreements.
Strikes by the union have closed 39 plants of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., Uniroyal Inc. and B. F. Goodrich Co. for 45 days. Contracts at those concerns expired April 20, as did those at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., whose plants have continued to operate on a day-to-day basis. Plants of General Tire & Rubber Co. also continued to operate since its contract expiration May 15.
Existing three-year pension and welfare agreements with Goodyear, Firestone, Uniroyal and Goodrich also are due to expire on Sept. 15, however, and the time proximity of the two rounds of negotiations has created a hurdle in reaching a wage contract agreement. Company executives, even before wage contract talks started, cited the prospect of facing two boosts in employment costs, plus two strike threats, in a single year.
More recently, with strike benefit funds about depleted by the lengthy work stoppages of some 51,000 employes of the three struck concerns, union officials were said to be becoming less adamant about keeping pension and welfare agreements separate from wage contracts.
While Peter Bommarito, URW international president, said a month ago the union was willing to consider a joint package proposal from the companies it is understood nothing more than exploratory discussions have taken place thus far in negotiations on this score.
At the weekend, however, a URW spkesman said the union would be “wide open to any proposals” from managements for wrapping up the two contracts in a single package. Company spokesmen also reiterated the contention that such a move common in most other industries, is “the most logical and sensible thing to do.”
Whether the resumption of talks, recessed since Thursday, between the union and Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich and Uniroyal this morning will result in any moves toward a single, overall contract remains to be seen. But the belief of sources close to the negotiations indicated prospects are better than ever before.
One possibly sticky point is whether a single, overall agreement would be for two years or for three. Earlier pension and welfare agreements have been for as much as five years. But both union and company sources noted this could be an issue for negotiation.
Mr. Bommarito earlier disclosed he has called a meeting for June 25 and 27, in Cleveland, of union pension and welfare contract officials. A union spokesman said the meeting still is scheduled, but he indicated this would not necessarily rule out a possibility of negotiating a combined contract before then.
The union’s strike benefit fund, amounting to about $6.5 million at the start of the three-company strike, presumably is exhausted as a result of the prescribed $25 weekly payments to striking members. The union has called on working members for voluntary contributions
equivalent to one hour’s pay a week, but the extent of the response has not been disclosed.
Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers union, has pledged striking rubber workers financial and other assistance in their dispute. But both UAW and URW officials decline to say whether any financial aid has been asked for or given.
Whatever the prospects for gaining an early single contract settlement, the union indicated at the weekend it intends to press its unfair labor practice charge against the five companies for their mutual strike aid pact reached last April 1.
In a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board regional office in Cleveland last week against Firestone, the union charged the pact thwarted free collective bargaining and is prolonging the strike against the three companies.
The union spokesman said identical complaints are in the mail to the NLRB against Uniroyal and Goodrich and will be followed today with complaints against Goodyear and General Tire.
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