Goodyear workers strike back

On Saturday, December 16 at 10:00 a.m., consumer, labor and community activists will join striking United Steelworkers (USW) Goodyear employees to protest Goodyear's assault on the living standards of its workers and abandonment of its retirees at the Goodyear Tire store in Greenwood, Indiana.

The effort which is part of a nationwide AFL-CIO-USW Day of Action in more than 100 locations — is intended to educate the public about the company's proposal to cut jobs and drastically scale back health care coverage for Goodyear workers and retirees.

Some 15,000 experienced Goodyear workers at 16 facilities were forced out on strike Oct. 5 due to the company's demands to gut their health care, close factories and increase tires being imported from China and other low-wage countries; even after the workers took steps to help the Goodyear get through a rough time in 2003, when it was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Goodyear's stock has risen to almost five times as much as it was in early 2003, and top executives have awarded themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. The company is nonetheless threatening to walk away from its health care obligations to some 30,000 retirees, offering a one-time fund that is a fraction of the company's current retiree health care liability.

"Goodyear is making itself a poster child for corporate greed by walking away from its American workforce, closing plants and trying to slash health care and retirement security obligations," said Bob Voorhies, President of the Central Indiana Central Labor Council. "The Goodyear workers are holding the line to save America's middle class." Source: United Steelworkers