Become Fifth Goodyear Facility to Join
With Steelworkers Since Beginning of 2004

It's "Union Time" for Goodyear Tire and Rubber employees in Social Circle, Ga. About 130 members have been added through the terms and conditions of a card-check neutrality clause in the Master USW-Goodyear Agreement. It is the fifth Goodyear facility to join with the USW since the start of 2004.

The formal request for Steelworker recognition came on April 16, 2005. A third-party arbitrator made the results official on April 28, then on May 25, a letter from Goodyear’s Global Labor Director JL Allen announced that the company recognized the USW as the employees’ exclusive bargaining agent.

After joining with the Steelworkers, employees almost immediately began to nominate and vote on members of a negotiating committee that will bargain their first-ever contract. They will join forces with with representatives from USW District 9 to gain improvements in their workday lives.

Workers at a Rheem manufacturing facility in Milledgeville, Ga., also members of the Steelworkers, assisted in the organizing campaign and were instrumental in helping gain a clear-cut majority.

The USW represents more than 20,000 Goodyear employees in the U.S. and Canada and 850,000 overall.