Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has avoided layoffs at its Fayetteville, N.C., manufacturing plant after some 200 workers accepted buyout packages, according to local reports.
Last October, Goodyear announced it needed to eliminate 200 jobs by late November. Through the buyouts, those jobs are being eliminated in phases, Darryl Jackson, president of Local 959 of the United Steelworkers of America, told the Fayetteville Observer.
Roughly 135 of the employees taking buyouts had been processed out as of Wednesday, he said, adding no further job cuts are anticipated.
In October, union members voted to approve a temporary agreement to a labor contract that allowed the company to offer the buyouts with the intention of avoiding layoffs. Under the agreement, those who were taking buyouts received $2,000 per year of service up to $50,000.
Prior to the cuts, the plant employed 2,750 hourly and salaried workers, most of them union members.