Will Bridgestone and USWA Resolve Differences?

(Akron/Tire Review) Even after reports that negotiators had to take a break to accommodate the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball championships in St. Louis and the United Steelworkers of America’s (USWA) April national convention in Las Vegas, there remain concerns on whether the USWA and Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire (BFNAT) can resolve their apparently deep differences and reach agreement on a new master contract.

Reports say the two sides will resume talks in mid-April after the USWA convention, where union members will vote on a proposed merger with the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) union. The new union – to be called the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union – would have more than 850,000 active members in more than 8,000 bargaining units in North America and an organising budget of more than $30 million (£16 million) per year – making it a formidable foe for unionised tyremakers.

Based on postings on Internet message boards, some USWA members are concerned that the union has been too preoccupied with the upcoming merger vote to provide focus and support on the BFNAT talks. Some workers have voiced frustration and displeasure with being in limbo, and concern that the mega-union created by the merger might be too big to properly address its tyre industry members.

Union workers at the eight USWA-represented plants and BFNAT have worked day-to-day under terms of the previous master contract, which expired in April 2003. Negotiations, which resumed last December after a 12-month hiatus, continued in St. Louis, but both sides appeared to be miles apart. Strike preparation meetings were held at the eight plants in March, but no strike had been called as yet. The union must give BFNAT five days notice before it can strike.

Both sides have remained quiet about the progress of the talks, which, according to the USWA, have centered around its concerns about BFNAT investment in its North American tyre plants and the prospect of some tyre manufacturing being moved out of the US

“The company still resists our demands that it grow and invest in our plants in order to secure the future of our plants and increase their share of new and higher margin products,” said USWA executive vice president John Sellers in a statement issued 8 March. “There’s no way that our members will accept a contract that allows BFNAT to export our jobs and replace our production with imports and goods produced at non-union plants.”

For its part, BFNAT remains optimistic that a new deal could be reached, and said it wants a fair contract, but one that allows the company to be successful. At the same time, BFNAT would not commit to maintaining three plants it has labeled as “distressed,” which include its industrial rubber products plant in Noblesville, Ind., its OTR tyre plant in Bloomington, Ill., and its tube plant in Russellville, Ark.