**Date:** 7-20-67
**Source:** Rubber Strike
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Ohio Talks Hold Key To Settlement
Striking United Rubber Workers employed at the UniRoyal plants in Naugatuck are anxiously waiting news from Cincinnati. With two of the “Big Four” rubber companies settling their differences, local residents are hopeful that a settlement with UniRoyal will come next.
Although negotiators met yesterday jointly following several small group meetings Tuesday that lasted into the night, no immediate news of progress has been released. Local workers eager for settlement are wondering about the annual footwear plant shut-down scheduled for three-weeks beginning July 28.
If the strike should end this week, the question now is when would the employees start back to work. Some have planned vacations that they feel can not be cancelled even though they have been out on strike for 90-days.
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 8 per cent supplemental unemployment program. The Goodrich agreement eliminated a pay raise differential between tire and non-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 quarter 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.