Titan Tire Lock Out: Lack of Union Contract Closes Local Plant
Lacking a contract approved by union membership, Titan Tire plants in Freeport, Bryan, Ohio and Des Moines, Iowa closed at 11 p.m. Friday.
Morry Taylor, Titan chairman and CEO, confirmed the anticipated closing Friday afternoon and said members of the United Steelworkers Union (USW) may vote on a new contract proposal sometime next week.
“It’s been a great negotiations, and there have been some good ideas, but now it’s time for (USW members) to decide,” Taylor said.
Freeport Local 745 union members are scheduled to meet Monday at 1 p.m. at the Masonic Temple in downtown Freeport to discuss terms of a contract proposal. A vote on that agreement is expected Thursday, according to a notice received by local union members.
Employees at the Freeport plant were instructed to remove personal items from the facility on Friday. First shift workers leaving the factory on Business Route 20 at around 3 p.m. were seen packing tool cases and carrying out other items.
At the Des Moines, Iowa, plant, a notice signed by Titan Tire president Bill Campbell indicated the facility would close at 11 p.m. Friday if an agreement had not been ratified.
The notice said that if the workers didn’t approve the contract until the middle of next week, the plant could not be reopened until Dec. 26.
“I’m not going to reopen the plant Wednesday and then close it down a day later for Christmas,” said Taylor.
A spokesman for the Steelworkers union, Local 164 in Des Moines, said Friday morning that no meetings are planned for next week.
Taylor said he couldn’t divulge the details in the contract, but said “the wages were left untouched. There were some changes in the work rules and also in the hospitalization plan.”
The Titan chairman said Freeport will continue to pay its employees the highest hourly-rate of the three tire plants and that the contract proposal offered to the USW will continue a “two-tier” compensation system, paying more to veteran workers and less to new employees.
“Honestly, it’s to a point that either this contract gets approved, or these employees need to go find those jobs that pay what we pay,” Taylor said.
Negotiations between Titan management and the USW locals representing employees at the three tire manufacturing plants have been ongoing for several months. Terms of an existing contract expired Nov. 19, and were extended through Friday, Dec. 17.
Negotiators representing the tire manufacturer and the union, representing all three Titan plants, have been meeting at a hotel in Merrillville, Indiana to bargain the terms of a new contract.
“We face a difficult challenge in these negotiations,” said USW District 7 Director Jim Robinson, who chairs the union’s Titan Tire bargaining committee. “The company has proposed an aggressive agenda to standardize our contracts and restructure work in our plants.”
Robinson said that the standardization has the potential to equalize working conditions at all three locations and help prevent any potential pitting of one location against another, creating more leverage for the union in future negotiations.
Kevin Kirk, President of Local 745, was not available for comment on Friday regarding the talks.
Titan Tire purchased Goodyear’s North American farm tire assets in 2005, which included the manufacturing facility in Freeport.
The following year, Titan purchased the off-the-road (OTR) tire assets of Continental Tire North America, Inc. in Bryan, Ohio. This acquisition expanded Titan’s product line to include larger earthmoving, construction and mining tires.
The plant in Des Moines, Iowa, was purchased in 1994 from the Pirelli Armstrong Tire Corporation. The facility specializes in manufacturing agricultural tires.
Titan employs more than 500 workers at its Freeport plant.
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