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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Plehwe, Dieter Research Report Change and concentration in the world rubber industry: an ICEF sector study Provided in Cooperation with: WZB Berlin Social Science Center Suggested Citation: Plehwe, Dieter (1990) : Change and concentration in the world rubber industry: an ICEF sector study, International Federation of Chemical, Energy and General Workers' Unions (ICEF), Brüssel This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/112671 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Weitere Informationen zum Projekt und eine Liste der ca. 1 500 digitalisierten Texte sind unter http://www.wzb.eu/de/bibliothek/serviceangebote/open-access/oa-1000 verfügbar. This text was digitizing and published online as part of the digitizing-project OA 1000+. More about the project as well as a list of all the digitized documents (ca. 1 500) can be found at http://www.wzb.eu/en/library/services/open-access/oa-1000. CHANGE AND CONCENTRATION IN THE WORLD RUBBER INDUSTRY An I C E F Sector Study Researched and Written by Dieter Plehwe CONTENTS Page Foreword : by Kenneth L. Coss. President, United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum & Plastic Workers of America Chairman, ICEF Rubber Industry Section...........................................................2 Introduction................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1: Rubber and Automobiles........................................................................9 Chapter 2: Globalization of Tire Manufacturing......................................................15 Chapter 3: Rubber Components Suppliers............................................................. 37 Chapter 4: Belting and Hoses - The 'Dumping Segment'....................................... 47 Chapter 5: Other Rubber Industry Segments -5.1: Gloves and Condoms............................................................... 51 - 5.2: Rubber Footwear.......................................................................53 - 5.3: Rubber Roofing.......................................................................... 54 Chapter 6: ICEF 1990 Survey of Rubber Employment, Wages and Conditions Footnotes......................................................................................................................................71 Abbreviations and Literature C ited................................................................. 72 cover photo: Tage Israelsson Foreword by Kenneth L. Coss President, United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum & Plastic Workers of Am erica (URW) Chairman, ICEF Rubber Industry Section Big, tough multinational employers and new work practices are among the major issues facing trade unions in all industrial sectors. Nowhere more so than in the rubber industry, which has gone through unprecedented change over the last decade. What can we, the representatives of that industry’s workers, learn from recent experience? Even more important, what further developments should we be planning for? To be forewarned is to be forearmed. That is why I welcome this new ICEF study on Change and Concentration in the World Rubber Industry. Thorough and analytical, without ever losing its trade union perspective, it will prove an important source of information for rubber industry workers and their unions everywhere. The tire industry, and therefore the rubber industry, worldwide is now dominated by just three massive companies - Michelin, Goodyear and Bridgestone. These have rapidly globalized their production, to the point where the world is becoming one single market for rubber products. As the results of the ICEF’s 1990 survey show, concentration, internationalization and new technology have gone hand in hand with job losses in many countries’ rubber sectors. A single world market for rubber products means a single world market for rubber workers’ labor. In this context, we all have a vital interest in helping each other to achieve the best possible pay and conditions. As the present study points out, “It is the value of international comparisons of collective bargaining data that they can be used very often to counter company arguments of the‘Can’t Pay’variety.” All ICEFaffiliates in oursector should ensure that our International receives the data needed to continue and expand such comparisons. Even allowing for differences in pay structures, it is clearly unjust that an unskilled rubber industry worker’s basic monthly wage can range from US$2,543 in the USA down to just US$156 in Brazil. Unjust - and dangerous. A leveling up is urgently needed. Not for the first time, workers are finding that solidarity and self-preservation are one and the same thing. That is as true between nations as within them. We will all need all the solidarity we can get because, as this study clearly shows, things are not going to become any easier. Overcapacity looms in the world industry. Wherever there is overcapacity, there is a threat to the livelihoods of industry’s real “risk-takers” - the workers. At the same time, industries that use rubber products, notably the automobile industry, have been squeezing their suppliers very hard indeed. To quote the study again, it is not difficult to imagine that “supply companies that are forced to ‘make concessions’ will recover some profits by passing the burden on to their employees. Concessionary bargaining and relocation in cheap labor countries (modeled after US developments) are likely to be observed in many more places including some Western European countries and in Japan.” Similarly in the belting and hose sectors: “If US developments are matched in Europe, a lot of organized workers could be under threat in the near future. Smaller units of production and less employees in general due to higher productivity play into the hands of anti-union employers.” Not that jobs are any more secure in the newly industrializing, underpaid countries. As the chapter on rubber sanitaryware shows, the sudden multinational investment boom in production of rubber gloves and condoms, a result of the worldwide AIDS crisis, often proved a short-lived, unreliable source of employment for workers who toiled under grossly exploitative conditions in those nations. Health and safety are high among ICEF rubber sector affiliates’ bargaining priorities, the 1990 survey showed. Here too, international solidarity is urgently needed, because of “signs that the spread of the industry to new operating countries...has led to a falling off of health and safety protection that has no objective grounds other than the direct intention of some companies to spend less on health and safety whenever they feel they can get away with it.” Closely linked to workplace health and safety is our concern for the general environment. The advent of synthetic rubber is generating a serious waste disposal problem everywhere, particularly as regards tires. The study rightly suggests that “unions can help to push for effective and environmentally sound ways of recycling.” Here too, jobs are at stake. These days, any industry’s long-term future is closely related to its environmental acceptability. 2 For an international view of health and safety