It Could be Goodbye to Goodyear in Gadsden

Apparently, it’s goodbye to Goodyear in Gadsden.

Reportedly the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has filed plans to close the plant with the Securities & Exchange Commission – which will effectively bring to a close the association between the company and Etowah County that  has existed since 1929.  The plan is still subject to union approval, and meetings with union membership will begin next Monday.  The plant which at one time was the largest in the world has been closed since March when the company closed all of its North American factories due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the 1980’s the plant provided jobs to more than 4,000 – and 2,550 workers remained up until 2000.  Just five years ago, the company began a $30.1 million expansion of the plant – which had a 1,400-member workforce at that time. But the number of people working at the Gadsden plant has been drastically downsized over the last year.  The filing states that the company reached a tentative bargaining agreement on April 17th to close the plant – “as part of the Company’s strategy to strengthen the competitiveness of its manufacturing footprint by curtailing production of tires for declining, less profitable segments of the tire market.”

Last December, 740 employees took part in voluntary buyouts at the plant; this February, a total of 105 employees were laid off – dropping the workforce down to just 411.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops.

(AL.COM/www.al.com)

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