Washington, D.C.
WHEREAS the Steelworkers Union, on behalf of its more than 15,000 members and 30,000 retirees and their families, reached an innovative collective bargaining agreement with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in 2003, in which they made significant sacrifices to bring the company back from the brink of bankruptcy; and,
WHEREAS these sacrifices included closure of the Huntsville, Alabama, plant; wage and benefit reductions; massive changes to improve productivity and efficiency; as well as increased retiree contributions to health care benefits; and,
WHEREAS these sacrifices have restored Goodyear’s profitability to $228 million after taxes last year alone, which the company’s executives have used to grant themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses; and,
WHEREAS Goodyear has ignored the sacrifices made by Steelworker members and retirees during the current negotiations, driving Steelworkers out on strike at 16 North American locations by rapaciously demanding more plant closings and more wage cuts while radically increasing investments in low-wage countries where workers are brutally oppressed; and
WHEREAS Goodyear has announced that it will double the volume of tires it imports into the U.S. and is committing to a tenfold increase in tires imported from Communist China, where workers’ fundamental human rights are violated; and
WHEREAS Goodyear’s top executives have nonetheless engaged in shameless hypocrisy by publicly proclaiming that they are “trying to save American manufacturing” and “fighting to preserve American jobs;” and,
WHEREAS Goodyear has unconscionably proposed to abandon totally its moral and legal obligations for retiree health care coverage while rejecting innovative Steelworker proposals for sufficient contributions to a benefit trust to ensure continuing health care security for retirees; and,
WHEREAS Goodyear’s abandonment of health security for retirees exacerbates America’s health care crisis; and
WHEREAS Goodyear has publicly misrepresented the specifics of its bargaining proposals in a blatant attempt to break the solidarity of Steelworker members; and,
WHEREAS Goodyear has revealed the depth of its commitment to the global race to the bottom by opposing even the Chinese Communist government’s recent move toward labor law reform; and
WHEREAS Goodyear has poisoned the atmosphere for a reasonable and equitable settlement with the Steelworkers by hiring scabs at its North American facilities; and
WHEREAS an independent study has cited the use of scab workers during tire industry labor strife as a factor in the production of defective tires that the federal government has linked to 271 deaths and 800 injuries in automotive accidents; and
WHEREAS the Steelworkers have launched an information campaign throughout North America to expose the risks that Goodyear’s hiring of scabs poses to consumers and to reveal the company’s unconscionable demands, its abandonment of workers, retirees and their communities;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the AFL-CIO and USW launch a nationwide Day of Action with all participating AFL-CIO affiliates to protest Goodyear’s assault on the economic security and basic rights of working families and Steelworker members, as well as current and future retirees; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the affiliated unions of the AFL-CIO will, whenever and wherever possible:
- Discredit Goodyear’s abandonment of American manufacturing, workers, retirees and their communities;
- Join with Steelworker members on informational pickets at stores selling Goodyear products;
- Condemn Goodyear’s assault on the health security of its workers and retirees as destructive to organized labor’s ongoing efforts to win accessible and affordable health care for all;
- Encourage employers with whom affiliates have contracts, both private and public, to abandon the use of Goodyear tires as original or fleet equipment, until such time as Goodyear relents in its unconscionable demands and shameless hypocrisy and reaches a reasonable and equitable agreement with the United Steelworkers.