BF Goodrich Workers Accept Michelin Deal

The associated press is reporting that workers at the Michelin-owned BF Goodrich plant in Ontario, Canada voted 94 per cent in favour of an offer from the tyre manufacturer, ending a strike of nearly three-months.

According to Pat Van Horne of the United Steelworkers of America, the ratification of the deal “effectively ends the strike” and workers should be back on the job in a matter of days. A thousand employees at the Kitchener, Ontario, plant walked off the job in June after failed contract talks.

The acceptance of the deal improves the odds that the workers’ US counterparts will also ratify it later this week. The new contract is said to retain a cost of living adjustment agreed by the parties. It is also said to include an improved incentive pay plan. The Kitchener facility and the US plants represented by the Steelworkers will be protected from closure during the term of the contract. In addition, the company will not outsource union members’ work and also agreed to spend $150 million of capital expenditure on the plants over the same term.

Canadian workers had originally walked off the job in protest against the company’s demands which included calls for a lifetime cap on health-care benefits for future pensioners, and wage concessions for new employees. Mr Van Horne said all those demands had been withdrawn.

USWA assistant director for Ontario/Atlantic Canada, Marie Kelly, credited “the cross-border pressure” applied by union members in Canada and the US who were negotiating with the company at the same time in Pittsburgh. “Major concessions demanded by the company are gone and we have made gains that will serve our members well into the future,” added Marie Kelly.

Later this week, 3400 US union members will vote on whether or not they should accept the deal. If the new deal is ratified it will ensure that two tyre plants in Alabama, one in Indiana and the BFGoodrich plant in Ontario, will remain open until at least 2006 when the new contract expires, the union said.

It is believed that the capital expenditures at the four plants will increase their capability to manufacture higher-margin tyres. The agreement also guarantees production levels allocated to each of the four plants.

Michelin spokeswoman Lynn Mann’s only comments were to do with the companies immediate plans: “Our intention is to move as quickly as possible to get Kitchener employees back to work and to return to a normal production schedule.”