Act by sending letters to strikers
telling them that they had been
permanently replaced although there
were vacancies in the strikers’ job
classifications, and by refusing to
reinstate the strikers.

Because the parties were unable
to reach an agreement by mid-
December, they recessed contract
talks until the first of the year.

1996. Negotiations resumed on
January 4, with subsequent talks on
January 5-6 and almost every day
between January 15-27, at which
time the company presented the

The New York Times, January 14, 1995, p.
A-l1.

union with another contract pro-
posal. The union abruptly broke off
negotiations, claiming that the
company’s offer was unacceptable.
That proposal would have eliminated
seniority as the controlling factor in
applying for jobs and shift assign-
ments, tied wage increases to
productivity gains, required employ-
ees to contribute to health care costs,
established a 7-day holiday schedule
set unilaterally by the company, and
eliminated excused absences.

The Nation Labor Relations
Board, on February 2, charged
Bridgestone/Firestone with several

—ENDNOTES—

? Daily Labor Report, No, 55, March 16,
1995, pp. AA-I and AA-2. (Bureau of National

unfair labor practices, including
eliminating accident and sickness
benefits to non-striking workers,
refusing to recall all strikers after the
dispute ended, and discouraging
union membership by employing
preferential hiring. As a recourse,
the Board pushed for back pay for
and recall of all strikers. Seven
months later, the company recalled
all but 150 former strikers.

On October 31, company and
union negotiators began secretive,
round-the-clock bargaining sessions.
Five days later, the parties signed a
tentative agreement settling the 27-
month long strike.

Affairs, Inc.: Washington, DC.)

Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 1997 26

Bl


BY MICHAEL H. CIMIN/

Michael H. Cimini is an economist in the Divi-
sion of Compensation Data Analysis and Plan-
ning, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Telephone
(202) 606-6275.

Stretching Out a Victory
in Long Rubber Dispute

Good, bad, win, or lose, both parties to the 2-year plus
rubber strike claim a sort of victory after each makes

major concessions.

bitter 27-month strike
ended at one of the Nation’s
largest tiremakers,

Bridgestone/Firestone, when
negotiators for the company and the
United Steelworkers signed a 3-year
labor contract on November 6, 1996,
that provided each side with wanted
contract changes. The protracted
dispute had attracted world-wide
attention when the Steelworkers—
who joined the fray when they
merged with the United Rubber
Workers—conducted an interna-
tional corporate campaign against
the company. The resources of the
combined union and, at times, other
organized labor groups, were pitted
against Bridgestone/Firestone and its
parent company, Bridgestone Co.,
an international business conglo-
merate headquartered in Japan.

The dispute became so heated that
the Rubber Workers’ president
accused the company of leading “an
unholy alliance” with three other
foreign-owned tire companies by
demanding such deep concessions
from the union that they would have
negated contract terms that had
evolved over nearly 60 years of
negotiations.

Major terms of settlement
The major terms of settlement,

23 Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 1997

which cover some 6,700 workers,
included victories for both parties.
Bridgestone/Firestone won the right
to run continuous, 7-day-a week
operations and to require employees
to make copayments for medical
services.

It’s a victory for both sides.
Saul Solomon, Bridgestone/

Firestone’s General Counsel

Union gains included the rehiring
of all workers dismissed during the
strike, partial back pay ($15 million)
for workers not immediately rehired
after the strike ended, use of senior-
ity as the deciding factor when
workers bid on jobs and work shifts,
and the restoration of the holiday
schedule (11 days from 7 days) and
the policy of excused absences. The
union also negotiated an expiration
date of April 23, 2000, which
coincides with the expiration of two
other major tiremakers—making it
easier for the union to push for
pattern terms jn the industry. Other
union-won gains called for a $750
signing bonus; an immediate general
wage increase of 40 cents an hour,
followed by a 35-cent-an hour wage
increase in September 1999; and a
$500 lump-sum bonus for workers at


Bridgestone/Firestone’s research and
development center and tubing and
air spring plants. The union failed
to get full back pay for strikers, but
defeated the company’s demand for
employee contributions towards
health insurance premiums.

Essentially, we wore the
company down.

George Becker, President of
the Steelworkers

Chronology of the dispute
After the 1991 bargaining round
in the rubber industry, it appeared
that Bridgestone/Firestone and the
United Rubber Workers were
building a harmonious, cooperative
relationship that would carry them
through rough times. In fact the
Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service—one of the Federal agencies
that administers the National Labor
Relations Act—presented the parties
its Award for Excellence in Indus-
trial Relations, which recognized
“., their initiative and
achievement in forging new
relations and structures between
labor and management throughout
their organizations for the
attainment of mutual goals in
industrial relations through labor

management cooperation.”

Then came a turn of events in
1994, when Bridgestone/Firestone,
along with three other foreign-
owned tire companies in the United
States, began vigorously pushing for
substantial wage and rule conces-
sions, particularly at low-productiv-
ity plants. As a result, more than
8,000 union members walked off
their jobs at the four foreign-owned
manufacturers, the most pervasive
Rubber Workers strike in 18 years.

The following is a chronology of
the Bridgestone/Firestone bargain-
ing, from the time formal bargaining
began in March 1994 to the settle-
ment in November 1996.

1994. The Rubber Workers and
Bridgestone/Firestone began contract

negotiations on March 21. The
parties held 40 bargaining sessions
over the next few weeks, but
negotiations faltered and were
suspended on May 24. The company
broke off contract talks, alleging that
the union was too absorbed with
ratifying an agreement at Goodyear
Tire Co., another rubber company
bargaining with the union at that
time. Subsequent contract talks
stalled when the company balked at
the Rubber Workers’ continued
insistence on a pattern-type agree-
ment. A company spokesperson said
Bridgestone/Firestone would refuse
to sign an agreement unless settle-
ment terms addressed the company’s
specific needs.

Formal contract talks resumed on
July 7, and the company presented
the union with a proposal for
settlement. The Rubber Workers
rejected the proposal and notified
Bridgestone/Firestone that it would
terminate its day-to-day extension of
their contract in 5 days unless
Progress was made in narrowing
their differences. The union broke
off negotiations on July 11, after the
company floated its final offer,
which the union characterized as
unacceptable because it included
numerous concessions: A $5-an-hour
reduction in pay for some jobs; a 30-
percent cut in wage rates for new
hires; a reduction in health care
coverage; establishment of a $68-a-
month employee contribution
towards health insurance premiums
for family coverage; elimination of
both supplementary unemployment
and workers compensation benefits;
a plan to link cost-of-living adjust-
ment payments to productivity levels
established by the company; and
changes in work rules, such as
running plants 7 days a week and
requiring 12-hour work days without
overtime. On July 12, the union
struck 5 Bridgestone/Firestone
plants, idling some 4,200 workers in
5 States.

On August 15, the company
imposed major parts of its final
contract offer. The union filed an

unfair labor practice complaint, in
which it accused the company of
refusing to bargain in “good faith”
and implementing contract changes
before an actual impasse had been
reached in negotiations.

Bridgestone/Firestone began
hiring permanent replacements on
August 15 at three struck facilities:
50 production workers for its plant
in Oklahoma City, OK; and 30
production and maintenance workers
at both the Decatur, IL, and Des
Moines, IA, plants. Although
Bridgestone/Firestone maintained
production levels at seven nonunion
facilities, the company stated that it
needed to hire permanent replace-
ments to resume normal production
levels at the strike-affected facilities.

In October, the company filed an
unfair labor practice complaint
against the Rubber Workers, alleging
that the union failed to bargain in
good faith and had introduced
“racial and national origin preju-
dices” into the dispute. The Rubber
Workers denied the charges.

Replacements for some strikers
were hired on November 7 at the
company’s Noblesville, IN, plant,
the last of its facilities struck by the
Rubber Workers. Unlike replace-
ments hired at the other three struck
plants, these new hires would not
permanently replace strikers, the
company said.

1995, On January 4, Bridgestone/
Firestone announced that it was
hiring more than 2,000 permanent
replacements for striking workers at
plants in Oklahoma City, Decatur,
Des Moines, and Noblesville. The
company said the decision was made
because it needed to resume full
production and initiate 7-day-a-week
production schedules at the plants.
A few days later, Local 7 of the
Rubber Workers, which represents
about 150 workers at Bridgestone/
Firestone’s racing tire production
and research facility in Akron, OH,
broke ranks with other locals and
agreed unconditionally to retum to
work,

Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 1997 24

rs 1


In mid-January, the 6-month
dispute entered a critical juncture
after political leaders began putting
pressure on the company. President
Clinton, four U.S. Senators, the
Japanese Prime Minister, and the
Japanese Ambassador became
involved in the dispute. The
President issued a statement on
January 13 saying, “(B)y bringing in
permanent replacements for their
workers who are on strike, while
refusing to come to the bargaining
table, the management of
Bridgestone-Firestone is flagrantly
turning its back on our tradition of
peaceful collective bargaining to
solve labor disputes.”"

The Rubber Workers, hoping to
end its 6-month dispute with the
company, proposed major conces-
sions to the tiremaker on January 18,
in the first face-to-face meetings in
several months. Among these were
new work schedules and employee
contributions towards health
insurance premiums, two key
sticking points in the dispute. The
union also agreed to allow the
company to pay new hires 70 percent
of normal base rates, with progres-
sion to full rates over 3 years; and to
reduce warehouse workers’ wages to
$11 an hour, although current
warehouse workers’ rates would be
grandfathered. Bridgestone/
Firestone rejected the union’s
proposals.

Company and union negotiators
returned to the bargaining table on
February 28 to try to forge a settle-
ment. This was the first face-to-face
meeting the parties held since
January 18, Additional negotiating
sessions were held on March 23-24
and April 7, but little progress was
made in the talks.

Members of Local 713 of the
Rubber Workers in Decatur agreed to
end their 10-month strike against
Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. and
accept the terms of the tiremaker’s
final offer on May 7. Roger Gates,
the local’s president, said that the
action was not a capitulation on the
part of the union, but a strategic

attempt to forestall a union .
decertification election, to keep the
company from hiring more replace-
ment workers, and to stop union
members from crossing picket lines
at the plant. According to press
reports, the union was also worried
about the effect of the international
union’s depleted strike fund on its
members, who had been without
paychecks for 10 months.

On May 23, the remaining
strikers at Bridgestone/Firestone
unconditionally agreed to return to
work under terms of the imposed
agreement. As in the case of the
Decatur workers, the company said
it intended to retain replacement
workers and would study the effect
of the union’s offer to return to work.

Under terms of the imposed
agreement, wages for most job
classifications were reduced by $5.34
an hour, to around $12 an hour, Pay
for new hires was cut 30 percent,
and incentive rates were reduced.
Pension benefits were frozen at their
existing levels. The work schedule
was amended to allow for continuous
operations with 12-hour shifts, that
is, 12 hours on followed by 12 hours
off.

Meanwhile, on March 15,
Bridgestone/Firestone, along with
several other business groups, went
to court to block President Clinton’s
executive order of March 8, which
authorized the Secretary of Labor to
cancel government contracts where
contractors had permanently
replaced lawfully striking workers,
or to bar the contractors from future
work. The company alleged that the
executive order “has injured and will
continue to injure Bridgestone/
Firestone, Inc. because it forces it to
surrender its lawful right to hire
permanent replacements during a
work stoppage. To the extent
Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. wishes to
remain a government contractor, it is
compelled to forfeit its right to hire
permanent replacements, which has
the deleterious effect of placing
Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. at a
comparative disadvantage in

25 Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 1997

negotiations with its employees’
union.”?

On June 26, the Department of
Labor notified Bridgestone/Firestone
that it was investigating whether the
company had permanently replaced
lawfully striking employees. If
Bridgestone/Firestone were found
guilty, the company’s Federal
contracts could be terminated, and it
eventually could be barred from.
future contracting with the Federal
Government.

On July 1, the Rubber Workers
merged into the United Steelwork-
ers. Seventeen days later, the
Steelworkers announced that they
would begin a nationwide consumer
boycott against Bridgestone/
Firestone and Sears Roebuck & Co.,
the largest domestic retailer of the
company’s tires. The union said it
was taking the action because
Bridgestone/Firestone insisted on
retaining permanent strike replace-
ments instead of recalling some
2,000 strikers who agreed to return
to work,

On Labor Day 1995, Steelwork-
ers’ members from across the
country held a national protest at
Bridgestone/Firestone’s U.S.
headquarters in Nashville, TN.
Steelworkers’ president George
Becker, who headed the protest,
castigated the company for not
tecalling all strikers and for refusing
to agree to a new master contract
that would restore workers’ previous
terms of employment.

Bridgestone/Firestone and the
Steelworkers resumed negotiations
on November 6 for the first time
since the union’s merger with the
Rubber Workers. The parties said
that they hoped to reach an agree-
ment by mid-December.

In late November, the National
Labor Relations Board announced
that it intended to issue an unfair
labor practice complaint against the
company if a settlement was not
reached soon. The Board said the
complaint would allege that the
tiremaker violated section 8(a) and
(3) of the National Labor Relations