Building a Stronger Union Around Safety

USW Activists Work Hard to Identify and Eliminate On-The-Job Hazards

In July 2025, Kerry Halter, president of Local 752L at the Cooper-Goodyear plant in Texarkana, Ark., invited a USW team to participate in a thorough inspection of the tire factory in hopes of addressing health and safety concerns at the place where he has worked for more than 30 years.

Along with representatives of Goodyear who happened to be at the plant the same day, Halter and other USW members conducted a walk-through of the sprawling factory, taking note of numerous potential hazards and reviewing the facility’s compliance with safety protocols and best practices for the site’s 1,800 union and salaried workers.

Identifying Hazards

The process resulted in a 23-page USW report filled with corrective measures to address the hazards. For Halter, the visits came at exactly the right time – with company and union representatives all on site, working together.

“I could not have scripted a better plan,” he said. “It just lined up.”

As a result, with top corporate management present, the local was able to identify safety concerns throughout the plant, including slip and trip hazards and issues with machine guarding, lockout-tagout of equipment, evacuation plans, alarm systems, work organization factors, and many other potential risks. They even had to use stop-work authorization on some of the items found.

“It was just a big red flag,” Halter said.

In the months since that July visit, third-party inspectors have conducted two additional audits.

“It was disturbing,” Halter said. “If you could lay all three audits side by side, you could see all the same deficiencies in safety.”

Ownership Change

The Texarkana plant was a Cooper facility acquired by Goodyear as part of the $2.8 billion deal that the two companies finalized in 2021. The site remained under the direction of former Cooper management while working to adopt Goodyear’s corporate practices, which led to some internal growing pains, Halter said, including struggles related to safety and health.

Now, the plant has a new director who is working with USW leaders to institute best practices and make sure all workers prioritize a safer workplace over production.

“If it’s not the same message from the top down and the bottom up, then it gets distorted, and it gets lost,” Halter said. “Anybody can say, ‘safety first,’ but it’s the action that you put behind those words that really tells the tale.”

USW HSE Conference

This May, Halter will be one of more than 1,800 USW members working to put those words into action at the USW Health, Safety and Environment Conference, scheduled for May 17 to 22 at Pittsburgh’s convention center.

The conference, held every 18 months, gives members the opportunity to attend scores of educational workshops, hear from experts, share industry trends and solutions and network with each other in an effort to reduce workplace fatalities and injuries.

Vera Passmore, president of Local 1133L at the Bridgestone-Firestone plant in Gastonia, N.C., will be attending the conference for the first time along with several co-workers, after her local negotiated new health, safety and environment language into their contract.

Passmore, Local 1133L Vice President Leonard Flack and other USW leaders at the plant worked with management to implement the hierarchy of controls, a method that prioritizes eliminating hazards rather than focusing on worker behaviors and personal protective equipment.

“We were able to come together to create a different path for us to improve health and safety,” Passmore said. “It’s going to improve the lives of our members.”

Flack noted that the new agreement in Gastonia contains language from the Bridgestone-Firestone master agreement that Local 1133L members now have for the first time. Gastonia workers produce tire cord and industrial fabrics.

“It’s simple,” Flack said. “When somebody goes to work, you want them to be able to go home the same way.”

Workplace Committees

It was that goal – having a safer workplace so workers go home in the same condition in which they arrive at work – that inspired Chris Schonhut of Local 419M to work to establish a new safety committee in his shop, which produces iconic Fiestaware table settings at the company’s factory in Newell, W.Va.

In the past, there “wasn’t much teeth” to the health and safety language in the union’s contract, Schonhut said. That changed during the most recent round of contract talks, when the union pushed for stop-work authority language and an expansion of the plantwide health and safety system.

As a result, members will receive intensive training in lockout-tagout procedures, hazard mapping and other important safety initiatives.

The age of the factory and the equipment members use were among the reasons for the new push to make a safer workplace, he said.

“We wanted to start being more proactive and reduce any chances for something to happen,” said Schonhut, whose local represents about 250 workers at the last commercial dinnerware manufacturer in the United States.

When local leaders were polling members on the issues of importance to them prior to bargaining, health and safety showed up time and again, Schonhut said.

“Health and safety has to be a part of the conversation,” he said.

Staying Active

Maintaining an active union health and safety committee is one of the most important and foundational ways in which USW members can leverage their collective strength to make their workplaces safer and healthier, said USW Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Director Steve Sallman.

Members who want more information about the union’s upcoming health, safety and environment conference or about how the union can support HSE programs on the local level can visit usw.org/hse.

Halter encouraged his USW siblings to never stop pushing to make sure every workplace puts safety first, even in the face of resistance from management.

“It’s not something that is unfixable,” he said. “It’s a large undertaking, but it’s not impossible when you have union solidarity.”

USW HSE CONFERENCE

The USW will hold its 2026 Health, Safety and Environment Conference from May 17 to May 22 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and Westin Hotel in Pittsburgh.

Registration will be open until Friday, May 1. Visit usw.org/hseconference for more information.