Note to Steelworkers Union: Shut Your Pie Hole.

Labor negotiations between Goodyear and the Steelworker's Union have apparently hit a wall. If you've been listening to the radio, the union is running an ad bashing Goodyear and implying that labor strikes account inferior tires that caused Ford Explorer rollovers several years ago. In addition, they plan to hand out fliers slandering the company.

The union on Saturday planned to protest the company by handing out fliers at Goodyear retailers across the nation, where they planned to tell customers to be concerned about the safety of the management-made tires.

So, now we're expected to believe that the Explorer rollovers happened because the tires (which were intentionally deflated) failed because they were manufactured by non-union labor? We're expected to believe that the union is somehow better trained to operate automated machinery? I call BS! I've seen union workshops. You can't teach those guys anything. They're too busy trying to figure out how much vacation time they've got left for the year.

According to the AP, the sticking points for the union are retirement benefits (medical coverage) and the closing of a plant in Texas.

Akron-based Goodyear has said it intends to close its Tyler tire plant by next year because the company is ending production of low-profit private-label tires. The union wants all plants protected from closing.

When talks resumed Tuesday, the union strongly objected to a company proposal for creating a retirees' health care trust, which the union argued shortchanged retirees.

Here's a real bright idea. Force the company to keep an unprofitable facility open, and refuse to cut the budget somewhere else. Is it any wonder companies are shipping labor over seas? When are the unions going to realize that the stranglehold they're placing on industry is like the colon reaching up to throttle the brain.