BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1996 Bridgestone/Firestone and the United Steelworkers reach a tentative agreement resolving "all key issues" in their long-running labor dispute, the parties announce. Neither side released details of the agreement ....Announcement of the tentative settlement comes the same day that hearings were scheduled to begin before a NLRB administrative law judge on NLRB complaints issued against Bridgestone/Firestone ....(Daily Labor Report, pages 1,A-1; Washington Post, page C13)_____After more than two years of fighting the biggest tire maker in the world, the United Steelworkers of America is claiming a victory. Yesterday, the union and Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., a unit of Tokyo giant Bridgestone Corp., announced an unexpected breakthrough in their 27-month labor dispute: They had reached a tentative agreement resolving all major issues ....Labor experts note that the terms of the contract are less significant than the fact that a contract was reached at all, says a labor professor at Cornell University. "Bridgestone Firestone was trying to break the union and they didn't succeed" ....(Wall Street Journal, page B1) Under a new contract between Kellogg Co. and the American Federation of Grain Millers, some 2,550 hourly employees at four plants will see no wage increases over the next three years but will receive cost-of-living adjustments expected to total about $1.43 per hour over the term. Continuation of COLA was a key issue in the contract negotiations ....(Daily Labor Report, pages 2,A-3). Skilled labor shortages head the list of greatest challenges for construction firms during the next five years, a construction association reports in its annual financial survey. Concern over shortages of skilled labor was expressed by 59 percent of the 1,009 construction firms responding to the Construction Financial Management Association questionnaire, compared with 48 percent last year ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-6). Graphs that show who America's low-wage workers are appear in an article on jobs at Marriott hotels. They're mostly women, they're young, and they're less educated (Business Week, Nov. 11, page 108). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Productivity and Costs, Third Quarter 1996
