ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704210152
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CINCINNATI
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
STAFF WRITER BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY.
The dean of Tech's Pamplin College of Business said the employees are among the country's highest paid.
Striking workers set up picket lines Sunday at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plants, including one in Danville, Va., after more than 12,500 employees walked off the job.
Contract talks between Goodyear, North America's largest tire maker, and the United Steelworkers union broke down late Saturday just before the contract expired at midnight, said union spokesman Curt Brown.
``We're still pretty far apart,'' Brown said Sunday. ``Our people are getting ready to pack up and go home.''
No new talks were scheduled, he said. Negotiations on a new three-year contract began March 6.
Workers began picketing shortly after midnight at plants in the Midwest and South.
Richard Sorensen, dean of Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, has served on the board of directors of Brad Ragan Inc., the nation's largest retailer of Goodyear products, for 20 years.
Goodyear owns 75 percent of the company, which has stores in Roanoke and Salem.
"I think [the strike is] very unfortunate because the Goodyear employees are among the highest paid employees in the U.S.," Sorensen said.
He doesn't think the strike will have a major impact on the average consumer because there are alternative products.
Customers in the construction and mining industries might be inconvenienced because tires for the heavy equipment they use were in short supply before the strike, Sorensen said.
Representatives of the local chapters of United Steelworkers that represent workers at Rubatex Corp. in Bedford and Yokohama Tire Corp. in Salem could not be reached for comment.
Goodyear has said it would continue operations at affected plants. This is the first strike against the Akron-based company since 1976.
Contract issues include wages and benefits, but the union also wants all contracts covering Goodyear's 20,000 union employees to expire at the same time.
The union also wants to bolster job security. Goodyear recently announced it would move production of bias-ply race tires from Akron to a plant in Chile, resulting in the loss of about 150 U.S. jobs.
Goodyear maintains it needs a flexible contract to operate efficiently.
``The company has no intention of mortgaging its future by agreeing to a contract that would widen a contractual disadvantage with its competitors,'' spokesman John Perduyn said.
The union is negotiating on behalf of Goodyear's hourly employees for the first time since it merged with the United Rubber Workers union in 1995. The union has 740,000 members and a large strike fund.
The contract covers workers at plants in Danville; Akron, St. Marys and Marysville in Ohio; Gadsden, Ala.; Union City, Tenn.; Sun Prairie, Wis.; Lincoln, Neb.; and Topeka, Kan.
Another 8,000 workers at eight other Goodyear locations are working under different contracts. Goodyear employs about 90,000 people worldwide.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB