Goodyear employees protest outside German tire plant

Fulda, Germany – Nearly 1,000 Goodyear employees gathered outside the company’s tire manufacturing facility in Fulda on 3 July to voice their protest at major job cuts at the site.

The protest, initiated by the factory works council, was joined by local authority officials and MPs,” the IGBCE union of mining, chemicals and energy workers reported.

"This won't be a hundred-metre run, but a marathon,” works council chair Ines Sauer told protesters, adding that “every single job is worth fighting [for].”

At the meeting, union officiials said Goodyear had presented "good figures" to its employees two months before the announcement of the job cuts.

The cuts, they claimed, are being introduced amid a 'bad economic situation while some Goodyear managers earn multi-million-dollar salaries.'

"It is incomprehensible to us why these job cuts should be necessary,” said Anne Weinschenk, Central Hesse district manager of the IGBCE rubber union.

“We are not prepared to talk about severance pay until we have a plausible explaination for it,” said Weinschenk, warning Goodyear of a long battle ahead.