**Date:** 6-21-67
**Source:** Unknown
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AKRON, Ohio (UPI) — Fed-eral mediators will meet Thurs-day in Pittsburgh with negotia-tors for the five major rubber companies and the United Rub-ber Workers Union in an effort to break the nine-week strike in the rubber industry.
William Simkin, director of the Federal Mediation and Con-ciliation Service, made the an-nouncement Tuesday in Washing-ton. Simkin said he would join the other federal mediators who have been trying to end the strike against Firestone, Uni-Royal and B.F. Goodrich.
Nearly 52,000 workers have been idled in factories across the country by the strike, al-ready the longest in industry history.
A spokesman for the United Rubber Workers said Tuesday that no progress had been made in negotiations during the day. Nearly 3,000 more URW mem-bers, at the General Tire and Rubber Co. facilities here and in Waco, Tex., are expected to walk out a midnight tonight.
URW President Peter Bommarito said the locals at the two plants voted to strike over the weekend when negotiations failed Friday to reach an ac-cord on pensions.
The strike against Goodrich, Firestone, and UniRoyal began April 20 when wage working conditions contracts expired. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. contract expired the same day, but production had continued on a day to day basis, as it did in the General Tire plants after their contract expired May 15.
In Naugatuck, Conn. the strike has crippled production at three UniRoyal plants. Simkin said in telegrams to the union and the five companies that “both sides have a pub-lic responsibility to exert every effort to reach an agreement.” He said the strike was hurting the companies, the workers, and the communities involved.
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This meeting could go on for weeks, according to a union spokesman. He added that union officials are tightening their jaws and preparing to hold out for their demands.
At the heart of the dispute were union demands for sub-stantial wage increases and sup-plementary unemployment bene-fits that would bring pay for workers laid off to 95 per cent of their regular straight time pay.
The companies have broad-ened negotiations to include dis-cussions of pensions and wel-fare benefits. All five compan-ies have made offers of a three-year contract that would wrap up wages, welfare, pensions and working conditions in one set-tlement.
Wage contracts and pension contracts have been traditional-ly negotiated separately in the rubber industry, the two-year wage contracts expiring in the spring and three-year pension contracts ending in the fall.
The union strike benefit fund, at $8.5 million when the strike began, is exhausted, and strike benefits have been reduced from $25 to $15.
Tire inventories of the three struck companies have been substantially reduced, but there is no indication of shortages of passenger tires yet. Original equipment supplies are believed sufficient to the end of the model year. The five companies have a mutual strike assistance pact. The URW has been trying to have this pact declared an unfair labor practice.
Local 45, URW, announced this morning that its President George Froehlich had been selected as one of a three-man team to attend the medi-ation sessions in Pittsburgh. Froehlich, they said, received the largest number of votes to represent the union in talks con-cerning UniRoyal.
The chief UniRoyal manage-ment negotiator will be Eugene Worcheser and the chief Uni-Royal union negotiator will be Herbert Dawson. It is not known who the third man on the Uni-Royal negotiating team will be.
The feeling among union peo-ple, according to a union spokesman, is that government included settlements generally go in favor of management.
This represents the second attempt to get all of the “Big Five” companies and union to sit down at the same table and talk. The first effort was thwarted by Goodrich union ne-gotiators.