Business in brief: Union deal lifts Goodyear stocks
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. workers had mixed emotions about the contract ending their 12-week strike at the world’s third largest tiremaker.
About 10,000 of 14,000 striking United Steelworkers members from 12 Goodyear plants in 10 states voted Thursday on the three-year agreement, which includes plans to close a Texas tire factory but creates a $1 billion health care fund for retirees.
The contract was approved by all locals and by the overall membership by a 2-to-1 margin, the union said Friday. The contract needed to be approved by a majority of the locals – seven out of 12 – plus a majority of the voters.
The vote means an end to the strike that began Oct. 5. and a return to work beginning Tuesday.
Goodyear shares closed at $20.99, up 98 cents, or 4.9 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange. They hit their highest level in a year in Friday trading, up $1.26, or more than 6 percent, to $21.35. The previous high of $20.38 was reached Tuesday after word that the company had reached a tentative deal with the union. The year’s low was $9.75.
Goodyear chief executive Robert Keegan said the pact will help the company significantly reduce its costs, making it a stronger global competitor and employer.
Company spokesman Ed Marke said Friday that the agreement means a chance at a bright future.
“Our goal was to reach a fair agreement that enhanced our ability to be competitive and this agreement does that,” he said.
Worley, Idaho
CdA casino taps Kramer for CFO
Spokane Valley native Scott Kramer has been named as chief financial officer of the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel.
Kramer will be in charge of operations at the resort’s departments of Finance, Accounting, Internal Auditing, Information Technology, Human Resources, Circling Raven Golf Club and the Chevron station.
Kramer is a 1982 graduate of Central Valley High School. Following his military service, he earned his degree in accounting at the University of Nevada in 1993.
Prior to his employment at Ribaul-Stauffer, Kramer was the senior accounting supervisor for International Gaming Technology of Reno, Nev., a company whose gross revenues exceeded $2.5 billion.
Albany, N.Y.
MetLife reaches deal with Spitzer
MetLife Inc., the largest group life insurer in the nation, will pay $19 million and change some of its business practices to end an investigation of payments made to brokers to steer clients its way, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Friday.
The settlement came as part of a multiyear investigation of bid rigging and price fixing in the insurance industry. Spitzer has argued that “contingent commissions” paid to brokers and agents to steer business to insurance companies are the equivalent of kickbacks that unfairly increase the prices paid by insurance clients.
New York-based MetLife will ban contingent commissions and disclose broker payments as part of the settlement.