U.S. Cooper Tire & Rubber Company says it hopes to work with local labor unions in China to solve some problems it has been having in Shandong.
Last year, workers at the Cooper Chengshan Tire plant were upset with a potential merger with Apollo Tyre, so the workers left their jobs. When they finally returned to work, they reportedly refused to make products carrying the Cooper brand.
In Cooper's company statement, they said, "Preliminary work to ramp up production of Cooper brands at CCT is taking place. While this is a step forward in resolving the issues there, Cooper is looking to the labor union and joint venture partner to assure that production will indeed resume in full and will continue uninterrupted. While restarting production of Cooper brands at CCT indicates positive progress, it is absolutely critical that actions are taken there to allow Cooper to resume regular financial reporting. This remains an open issue and we are working hard to resolve it as our top priority."
Cooper's headquarters is in Findlay, Ohio, with manufacturing, sales, distribution, technical and design facilities within its family of companies located in 11 countries around the world.
