FORD, BRIDGESTONE/FIRESTONE SCANDAL
Workers' control can stop corporate crimes
By Milt
Neidenberg
They are corporate criminals.
The top management of Ford Motor Co. and
Bridgestone/Firestone--including Ford Chair William C. Ford
Jr., Ford President Jacques Nasser, recently retired
Bridgestone/Firestone Chair Masatoshi Ono and new Chair John
Lampe--are all guilty of criminal negligence.
For the last five years, they knew that a scab workforce
had built defective tires in Decatur, Ill. They also knew
that those tires caused death and injury to many who drove
Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles.
This corporate cabal recently agreed to recall 6.5 million
defective tires and made phony apologies to the victims.
In mid-October the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration reported that there were 119 deaths and over
500 injuries attributed to the use of these defective tires.
Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone deceived the public for years
as they conspired to continue to mount the tires on Ford
Explorers.
The NHTSA also reported more than 3,500 complaints that
could add to the toll of deaths and injuries after they are
reviewed--an alarming increase from only a few months
ago.
These facts should have persuaded the U.S. Justice
Department to begin a criminal investigation.
Tycoons held accountable?
Will these corporate tycoons and their global
empires--which are responsible for similar deaths and
injuries worldwide--be held accountable?
The actions of the Congress and the Justice Department
say: Absolutely not.
In the capitalist United States, there is no
accountability for those who have the power, wealth and
influence to whitewash their sins. They are above the law.
Their morality is governed only by the need to expand the
enormous profits of their global corporate empires.
Ford Jr. is the great-grandson of Ford Motor founder Henry
Ford, and his mother is a granddaughter of Firestone founder
Harvey S. Firestone Sr., a close friend of old man Ford.
At a Sept. 14 news conference, Ford Jr. stated, "It hurts
to see a family name and a family heritage tarnished so
badly."
What arrogance! Compare his "pain and suffering" to that
of the families who have lost their loved ones in completely
preventable auto accidents.
To add further insult to injury, Ford Jr. then announced
that he would reward shareholders by distributing $5 billion
in cash in a buyback stock transaction.
Ford, Bridgestone/Firestone and their millionaire
underlings wallow in giant salaries, bonuses and stock
options that buy off, bribe and run the capitalist
government. They are the untouchables in capitalist
society.
Meanwhile, the courts and jails are filled with poor
people and youths of oppressed nationalities.
While Ford Jr. blames the tire company for the crisis,
Lampe, the new chief executive of Bridgestone/Firestone, told
a Congressional hearing, "I'm tired of hearing that the whole
blame rests upon the tire."
It's clear there is a falling out among the corporate
criminals.
Workers face layoffs
However, Lampe, Ford and their cronies need not worry
about facing criminal charges for their conspiratorial
behavior and cover-ups, or even financial liability. Congress
took care of all that following the September-October
hearings.
Both houses of Congress approved legislation--which
President Bill Clinton has agreed to sign--that effectively
whitewashes their crimes. Transportation safety advocates and
specialists say the legislation fails to apply appropriate
punishments and fines--including criminal penalties and jail
time--for failing to report defects in cars and tires.
The NHTSA even had to warn Bridgestone/Firestone to stop
forcing consumers with suspect tires to give up their right
to sue if they want replacements. There are some 700,000 of
these requests.
In fact, since 6.5 million defective tires were recalled
on Aug. 9, only 3.7 million have been replaced, according to
Lampe. (New York Times, Oct. 11) Both corporations have spent
most of their time on damage control and cost cutting--that
is, layoffs.
Did they lay off any of the thousands of administrative,
production, engineering, public relations and, most
significant, legal department managers, with their huge
salaries and freebies? Absolutely not.
The first casualties, on Aug. 21, were 6,000 unionized
Ford assembly line workers. The company shut down Ford
Explorer production in St. Louis, Mo., and Ford Ranger
production in St. Paul, Minn., and Edison, N.J.
These layoffs translated into 10,000 fewer Explorers and
15,000 fewer Rangers being produced. It caused a ripple
effect with suppliers who then laid off more workers. It's
not clear how many, if any, have returned to work.
On Oct. 17, Bridgestone/Firestone followed Ford with an
attack on its workforce. It cut back production at three
factories--including the Decatur plant. Some 450 Decatur
workers were laid off.
The attacks were not only at Bridgestone/Firestone. Cooper
Tire and Rubber recently announced similar plans to cut 1,100
jobs and close, sell or consolidate 18 plants and offices to
cut costs. The announcement follows an investigation into 11
deaths caused by tire defects and poor safety controls over
tire production.
Crisis began in 1990
The crisis for workers in Decatur really began a decade
ago. In 1990 corporate heads at what was then Firestone
announced plans to invest millions of dollars in new
technology.
Competition in the tire industry was fierce. Firestone was
responding to Good year Tire, which had earlier set up and
refined a computerized machine that reduced a retooling
process for making different-sized tires from more than four
hours to three hours. (New York Times, June 4, 1987)
This rise in productivity resulted in a crisis of
overproduction and the intensification of exploitation.
It was this introduction of labor-saving devices--now
called the scientific-technological revolution--that led to
the Decatur War Zone from 1994-1996. It was during this
two-and-a-half year period of corporate tyranny and
turmoil--including a 10-month-long strike forced on the Auto
Workers union--that Bridgestone/Firestone produced the
defective tires Ford mounted on its Explorers.
In November 1996 the Auto Workers were forced to accept an
agreement that left most of Bridgestone/Firestone's scab
workforce in place. Management alone set the standards of
production and conduct in the plant. Any worker who failed to
abide by these standards was subject to indefinite suspension
and disciplinary action, up to and including discharge, union
members reported.
Workers' control of industry
The bitter events in Decatur are in the spotlight again
with the tire scandal, layoffs and indefinite plant shutdown.
It is timely and urgent during this protracted crisis to
impart a broader, independent and militant perspective to the
millionfold workers and their allies.
What if workers' control of industry had been raised as a
demand by the labor movement in the 1980s and 1990s or even
earlier, when major advances were being made in the
scientific-technological revolution?
In the hands of the bosses, the tremendous advances in the
means of production are driven only by the profit motive.
Their introduction causes havoc for hundreds of millions of
workers on a global scale. The resulting mega-merger
corporations are accountable to no one.
"Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the
same time, accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery,
ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite
pole," as Frederick Engels so well described it in his book,
"Socialism: Utopian and Scientific."
What's the solution? The workers must control and run the
factories and offices. There is no other way to eliminate the
capitalists' insatiable appetite for exploitation.
The productive forces, created by the collective labor of
various sectors of the working class, have far outgrown the
constraints of private ownership. They are really social in
character, crossing national boundaries.
The workers have the skills and the knowledge to run these
industries.
Raising the issue of workers' control of industry will
find favor, not only in the multinational working class, but
also among the millions of consumers who are rightly
suspicious of the giant transnational corporations.
Workers' control over production and all conditions in the
workplace also raises the issue of the workers' right to
occupy the plants during a protracted crisis, like the one at
Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone. The sit-down strikes of the
late 1930s gave a splendid example of what workers could do
when they are organized, united, independent, creative and
militant.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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