A bad night for Goodyear

By Chad Williamson, Marysville J-T Editor

What has long been remembered locally as the “Goodyear riot” of 1976 may have been less an organized uprising and more the boiling over of years of frustration among workers at the Marysville Goodyear conveyor belt plant.

That’s the perspective shared by former employee Mark Thompson during a recent Marysville Journal-Tribune Podcast conversation reflecting on the approaching 50th anniversary of the incident on April 21, 1976. Thompson, who worked at the plant as a teenager, said the confrontation between workers and management grew out of a tense workplace culture, difficult schedules and economic pressures common during the 1970s.

“It was an interesting …

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