(TONAWANDA, NEW YORK) – Nearly 1,000 United Steelworkers (USW)-represented Employees at Sumitomo Rubber USA’s Tonawanda Plant here in Western New York will vote early next week on what USW Officials today (Wednesday, August 2nd) are calling the “richest contract ‘ever negotiated’ in the tire industry.”

A ratification vote has been scheduled for Monday and Tuesday (August 7th and 8th), USW Local 135 President Tom O’Shei tells WNYLaborToday.com. 

O’Shei said the USW Bargaining Committee is urging Local 135’s 950 Members who are employed at the 94-year-old Tonawanda plant located just outside Buffalo - which first began making tires in 1923 and is believed to be one of Western New York’s largest manufacturers, producing a variety of tires, ranging from passenger car and light truck tires, tires for SUVs, as well as for buses and motorcycles – to ratify the new deal.

“This is the ‘richest’ contract ‘ever negotiated’ in the tire industry,” O’Shei tells Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.  “Our Members make a ‘very good life’ for themselves here and for this to happen here in Western New York, it’s ‘good.’”

During an interview with WNYLaborToday.com in August 2016 when Sumitomo announced it was investing $87 million to increase the production capacity of the plant, O’Shei described the plant’s USW-represented Workforce there as the “highest-compensated (tire production Workers) in the world.”

According to USW Local 135 Officials, the contract features:

Wages: All Employees will receive 75-cent increase that will occur in the first payroll period following ratification.  Each year thereafter, Workers will receive a 20-cent increase, which will be effective during the payroll period following 8/1/2018, 8/1/2019, 8/1/2020 and 8/1/2021.  In addition to the general wage increase, Skilled Trades (excluding Electricians) will receive $1 an hour during the first pay period following ratification. The first payroll period following January 1st, 2018 - all of Skilled Trades will receive a 25-cent per hour raise.

Health Insurance: Workers will pay for a $1.50 per week increase in premiums in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 – which amounts to a $6 a week increase in 2021 with no changes to coverage and no premium increase in 2022.  A high deductible plan with a Healthcare Savings Plan will be made available to those Workers who want this option.

Formerly known as Goodyear Dunlop Tires North America, the Tonawanda facility changed its name in 2016 after the dissolution of a joint venture between Goodyear and Sumitomo in late 2015.  That’s when Sumitomo came back for a second go-round (it had owned the plant in the 80s when it began investing an overall $300 million into the local facility that ran into the early 90s) when it took full ownership of Goodyear Dunlop Tires North America.

The Tonawanda plant is slated to increase tire production from 5,000 tires per day to 10,000 tires by the end of 2019.  Company Officials have told WNYLaborToday.com the $87 million investment was to be made over a four-year period, with “quite a bit of new equipment” coming into the plant in the fourth year.

“This is an investment that ‘pays out in the long term,’” the USW’s O’Shei, who traveled to Japan with Union and company representatives in early 2016 to tour Sumitomo’s tire-making operations in that country, told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper last year.

For More On This Labor News Story, Read WNYLaborToday.com’s August 2016 Labor News Report, Headlined: $87 Million Sumitomo Investment In USW-Represented Tonawanda Tire Plant Born Out Of Tough Labor-Management Decisions Made Through Five Ownership Changes, at: www.wnylabortoday.com/news/2016/08/17/buffalo-afl-cio-clc/87-million-sumitomo-investment-in-usw-represented-tonawanda-tire-plant-born-out-of-tough-labor-management-decisions-made-through-five-ownership-changes/

WNYLaborToday.com File Photo.