North America
Yokohama Tire Corporation is ringing in the New Year with hefty price rises on its OTR tyres. As of 1 January 2012, base prices for these products in the US will increase by up to 15 per cent; this list price adjustment will be followed by additional in-line adjustments, the details of which Yokohama will announce at a later date.
According to local newspaper The Courier, negotiations to end the lockout at Cooper Tire & Rubber’s Findlay plant in the US will resume on 13 December. As was the case for the previous, failed talks, the next round of negotiations will include a federal mediator. Whether these fresh talks will deliver results is far from certain, however – neither party has voiced a willingness to compromise its existing bargaining position.
Workers made redundant in 2009 when Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. closed its plant in Albany, Georgia are back at work with the company, Tire Review reports. According to news from Albany television station WALB-TV, the ex-Albany employees were among a group of temporary workers Cooper hired to operate its Findlay plant.
In the last couple of weeks the tyrepress.com website has published a number of texts updating the progress, or lack thereof, of negotiations between Cooper Tire & Rubber and the United Steelworkers towards a new contract for Cooper’s Findlay, Ohio plant. The current standoff between union and tyre maker is not the first Tyres & Accessories has reported, and is certain not to be the last. Yet some think what is happening in Findlay shows the direction US labour relations are taking; the Wall Street Journal, for example, opines that “the clash between Cooper and its 1,050 union workers may signal a return to a more combative tone in the America's industrial heartland.”
Through its “Forever Forest” programme, Yokohama Rubber and its subsidiaries aim to create verdant surroundings at Yokohama facilities around the world; the intention is to plant more than half a million trees by 2017, a goal Yokohama is almost halfway towards achieving. The company’s US tyre operation, Yokohama Tire Corporation launched the second phase of its Forever Forest activities on 7 December with the planting of more than 300 seedlings at its headquarters. This second phase planting in Fullerton, California followed the inaugural event held in December 2010 when Yokohama Tire Corporation planted more than 500 tree seedlings.
On 6 December the United Steelworkers International union and its Findlay, Ohio branch, Local 207L, filed charges against Cooper Tire & Rubber with US government agency the National Labor Relations Board. The charges allege Cooper Tire committed “unfair labour practices in bargaining and imposing a lockout” at its Findlay tyre plant, the USW reports.
US news sources report Cooper Tire & Rubber has brought in temporary workers to operate its Findlay, Ohio factory. Union member employees have been locked out of the plant since 29 November and local television station WTOL says temporary factory workers were driven in vans into the plant past picketing union workers on 5 December.
Sporting events in the US don’t get any bigger than the Super Bowl, and the American football game’s halftime show is a magnet for leading musical acts. In past years The Who, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2 have made appearances, and on 5 February the Bridgestone-sponsored halftime show will feature no less a talent than Madonna.
The Rubber Manufacturers Association, which represents the manufacturers accountable for more than 90 per cent of all US tyre shipments, has lowered its 2011 tyre shipment forecast by one per cent due to downward revisions in year-end economic growth in the US. This revised full-year forecast of 287 million total units is approximately two million units more than in 2010. For next year, the RMA retains a “guardedly optimistic” forecast as US economic growth is anticipated to remain slow, and the association expects overall tyre shipments in 2012 to increase by more than two per cent to over 290 million total units.
In a statement updating the progress of negotiations over its Findlay, Ohio factory, Cooper Tire & Rubber reports that the United Steelworkers union has rejected its offer to extend the recently expired worker’s contract. An extension of the contract that expired on October 31 would have allowed plant workers who are USW members to get back on the job as early as the weekend of 3-4 December and enable production to continue as usual while Cooper and the Union continue negotiations towards a new long-term contract. While Cooper’s statement did not specify the length of the extension sought, non-profit news magazine In These Times reports that Cooper wants to extend the current agreement by one year.
The Tire Industry Association has posted the newly released charts from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration on its website. Commercial truck tyre service providers in the US are required by 29 CFR 1910.177 to have a copy of these charts in every service area, which includes mobile service trucks. Previously a two-chart set, OSHA added a third chart so the procedures for demounting, mounting and inflating single and multi-piece assemblies could be addressed separately.
The president of Michelin Canada, Dana LeBlanc, has spoken out against legislation being introduced by the Province of Nova Scotia. The legislation LeBlanc opposes is Bill 102, an amendment to Nova Scotia’s Trade Union Act. This amendment will introduce first contract arbitration in Nova Scotia. Critics of Bill 102 claim it is a job killer that will give unions a foothold in non-union workplaces.
Looking back on 2011 and forward to the coming year, Rick Phillips, Yokohama Tire Corporation’s director of commercial sales, states that the tyre maker expects the strong demand it has experienced in the North American market this year to continue. “Demand has continued to outweigh supply so we have literally sold everything that we are able to build,” he commented. “As an industry, we will go into 2012 with very little beginning inventory, much like we did in 2011…we see the demand continuing to be greater than supply, at least through next summer. Despite reports on the economy being on the brink of another recession, the trucking industry remains strong.” Phillips believes that high levels of demand, particularly within the OEM segment, may lead to further pressure upon the replacement market.
Following the failure of Cooper Tire and the United Steelworkers to reach an agreement on a new long-term contract for unionised workers at Cooper’s Findlay, Ohio factory, the tyre maker announced on 28 November an immediate lockout of USW members at the facility.
Every year the American Association of Retired Persons – AARP for short – lists its top fifty employers for workers over fifty. In 2011 Michelin North America once again made the top fifty – the fifth time it has been recognised in this way by the AARP.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
