Titan chairman and CEO Morry Taylor may not have a high opinion of French tire workers, but it appears they have put their nose to the grindstone on one very American tradition – filing lawsuits.
Workers from the to-be-closed Goodyear tire plant in Amiens, France, filed suit in Summit County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court yesterday, seeking to block the tiremaker’s plan to shutdown the plant and gain $4 million in damages.
According to news reports, the French workers have retained attorney Robert Gary, who said the suit was filed in Goodyear’s hometown because the decision to close the plant was made at Goodyear’s corporate headquarters.
The suit, reports said, also claim that Goodyear harmed worker pay by reducing plant output and disregarded court ruling in France that favored the worker unions. At the same time, Goodyear has been trying for more than five years to restructure the plant in the face of declining European car market and the tiremaker’s move away from agricultural tires.
For its part, Goodyear told the Associated Press yesterday that it had no comment as it had not seen the lawsuit.