From Tire Review
Bloomberg reported that Goodyear plans to offer buyouts of as much as $40,000 in a move to trim some 400 hourly jobs at four USW-represented plants.
The early retirement program was approved as part of Goodyear’s new master contract with the USW.
Bloomberg said the buyout offers will be made by the end of this month, and will include a one-time cash payment equal to $2,000 for each year of services, and a minimum payout of $8,000 and maximum of $40,000.
Early retirement packages will reportedly be offered to workers at Goodyear facilities in Lincoln, NE, Sun Prairie, WI; Marysville, OH, and St. Marys, OH.
In other news, the tiremaker announced it would discontinue tire production at its Valleyfield, Quebec, plant.
The USW-represented plant will be transitioned to a materials-mixing-only plant by the end of the second quarter of 2007.
The plant, which currently employs some 1,000 salaried and hourly workers, will be downsized to about 200 employees with the change.
The move comes on the heels of Goodyear’s new master contract with the United Steelworkers, which delayed by one year the tiremaker’s plan to close its Tyler, TX, plant. Goodyear planned to close the plant as part of its move away from private brand and broadline manufacturing in North America, but the USW won a brief reprieve.
Goodyear said the Valleyfield closure “is related to the company’s ongoing global strategy to reduce excess high-cost manufacturing capacity.”
The tiremaker said the Valleyfield closure will reduce its North American capacity by some 7 million units, and will result in total charges of $115 million to $120 million for restructuring and accelerated depreciation.
