For 20 years, Ellis has heated tires on a machine, sweating in 120-degree heat in the summer. But next Friday, he’ll be laid off with 171 fellow workers. He’s considering going back to school. He’s held off on vacation plans to Boston. He doesn’t know what his severance package will look like – or if he’ll even have one. He just knows that money will be tight.
"I’m stuck right now," said Ellis, 38, who lives in Lancaster, S.C., with his girlfriend and her two teenage children. "I need to get me another career. I want a field that needs a lot of people – a professional career, not manufacturing."
Ellis was one of hundreds of workers who trickled into Continental’s smoky union hall off U.S. 521 for meetings. Workers wondered when they would be laid off and how much healthcare will cost. But, mostly they were resigned to the reality that they might lose their jobs.
Standing next to a U.S. flag, union president Mark Cieslikowski leaned his meaty arms against the lectern and spoke passionately to a silent, somber crowd who wore navy blue work overalls and jeans. He explained how Continental managers stopped bargaining Sunday night, how they cut wages Monday morning and that the plant could stop making tires this fall.
"I truly feel the company didn’t want an agreement," Cieslikowski, in a white "Continental Tire: Running over working families" T-shirt, told the crowd. "We’re going to milk all we can get – a contract, a buyout."
Continental has said it will stop making tires in Charlotte this fall, because the union rejected a 35% cut in pay and benefits. The company also will slice its workforce of 800 to about 200, maintaining basic functions such as warehousing. No new negotiations are scheduled. The union wants to continue talking, however, and plans to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, morale has sunk at the plant. Managers have told workers Continental is shutting down production for the last two weeks of May. Workers are being sent home early. Layoff meetings will be held at the plant with affected workers today.
Continental spokesman Rick Holcomb said the company wants to clear inventory while the plant is closed in May because of "worsening business conditions, diminishing demand from OE and replacement business."
At the union’s 10 a.m. meeting, workers worried that Continental will do to Charlotte what it did to its unionized Mayfield, Ky., plant in 2004. That year, Continental cut jobs and wages in Mayfield, blaming the cost of health care and materials. It stopped making tires there at the end of the year.
After the meeting, Dale and Teresa Helms of Mount Holly said they believed the Charlotte plant was doing well. The couple met each other at Continental, getting to know each other during the job’s long hours. They got married three years ago. Teresa’s sister and brother-in-law also work at the plant.
Teresa, 48, a brunette in a red tank top and jeans who spoke up during the meeting, said she read about the soaring profits of Continental’s German parent company. Now, the couple feels betrayed.
"People have an attitude, we just don’t care," Dale, 44, said.
Teresa added: "If you don’t want us, let us go, let us go. We used to talk about the weekend, NASCAR. Now, it’s the latest rumor. It’s the main topic in the break room, in the parking lot, at the lockers."
The couple have been making back-up plans. Teresa is taking a correspondence course in business management. She hopes to go to mortuary school, a profession she says can’t be outsourced. Dale wants to take landscaping courses at school, since he does that on the side.
They’re also reducing costs where they can – and are cutting down on their passion – NASCAR – by attending fewer races.
Arriving at the plant before noon for the next meeting, George Miranda, 66, said he was worried about health insurance. Miranda inspected tires for 32 years after immigrating to the U.S. from Ecuador almost four decades ago.
The father of five and grandfather of nine now receives about a $1,500-a-month pension, but worries he’ll be squeezed once retirees have to start paying for health insurance next January. He has diabetes and high blood pressure.
"Because I’m thinking too much, I’m going crazy," said Miranda, a Pineville resident who retired last year.
