Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) will release its sales and earnings results for the third quarter before the markets open on Wednesday, Oct 28. The Akron, Ohio-based tire manufacturing company – one of the largest worldwide – reported a net loss of $221 million or 92 cents per share in the second quarter of 2009, worse than the Zacks Consensus Estimate loss of 72 cents per share. The company reported earnings of $75 million or 31 cents per share in the same quarter a year back.   Total segment operating income plummeted 93% to $24 million in the second quarter from $330 million in the prior-year quarter. This can be attributed to continued weak demand that resulted in a negative volume impact of $129 million and under-absorbed fixed costs of approximately $250 million prior to a restructuring actions benefit.   However, Goodyear witnessed a sequential improvement in ...

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) revealed that it reached a tentative four-year agreement on a United Steel Workers (USW) deal, about three hours before a midnight deadline for expiration last Saturday. The new contract covers about 10,300 employees at seven tire plants in the U.S. The plants are in Akron, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; Danville, Virginia; Fayetteville, North Carolina.; Gadsden, Alabama; Topeka, Kansas; and Union City, Tennessee.

The three-year old contract has been extended twice. Goodyear was in talks with USW in Cincinnati since June 8. The steelworkers were adamant throughout the negotiations about maintaining their job security. However, Goodyear did not disclose any details about the deal, especially on job cuts and plant closures.

Goodyear is focused on streamlining its operations by achieving cost reductions of $2.5 billion by 2009. Of this, the company already achieved $1.8 billion by the first half of the year. Goodyear anticipated that

...