Lessons of Firestone tire crisis
Should workers take over their industry?
By Milt
Neidenberg
Could the tragic loss of life and serious injuries caused
by defective Bridgestone/ Firestone tires have been avoided?
Did scab replacements produce a dangerous and flawed product
during the 27-month struggle from 1994 to 1996--tires which
have caused many deaths and injuries when their treads
separated from the rest of the tire?
The answer to both questions is "yes."
The defective tires were built primarily in Decatur, Ill.,
when the tire corporation extensively and ruthlessly replaced
a skilled, experienced union workforce with scabs. The bosses
call them replacement workers to legitimize their role in
strikes and lockouts. Scab labor is cheap labor. Scabs serve
at the mercy of profit-driven corporations and have no
rights.
The Ford Motor Company bought these defective tires and
knew where and under what conditions they were built. Yet
they conspired with Bridgestone/Firestone to twist and bend
the truth to cover it up. Only recently did they publicly
admit they knew scabs built those tires.
It has been confirmed again and again that in a corporate
culture that feeds on lies and deception, profits come before
safety regulations.
What really happened during those fateful years when
millions of defective tires were built?
The class struggle had reached a fever pitch in Decatur.
There was a bitter and prolonged strike at Caterpillar, the
world's largest producer of earth-moving equipment, a company
similar to Bridgestone/Firestone.
There was another strike at A. E. Staley, a giant
corn-grinding corporation, whose product ends up as sweetener
for beverage corporations like Pepsi-Cola. Tate and Lyle, a
British conglomerate, had acquired Staley in a 1988
merger.
Bridgestone, a powerful Japanese rubber corporation, had
merged with Firestone to produce Bridgestone/Firestone. It
immediately put into operation a brutal plan that downsized
the unionized workforce and increased production levels. This
resulted in inhuman speedups on the assembly and production
lines--speedups that made it difficult to separate out
defective rubber.
Union members who testified in preparation for legal suits
against Bridgestone/Firestone recently exposed these
production problems.
Decatur was the 'War Zone'
Unionists all over the United States knew Decatur as the
"War Zone." It was an embattled city under assault from
absentee corporate/bankers who were determined to break the
unions. It is important to note that the rank-and-file rubber
workers, skilled and with years of experience, fought for
over two years to save their jobs and maintain some leverage
over wages and working conditions.
Many workers lost their homes. Families broke up due to
extreme financial and personal tensions. Other workers left,
seeking jobs elsewhere so they could send money back to keep
their homes intact. And all during this period they saw
company-paid goons intimidate the picket lines so scabs could
cross and produce tires at an unprecedented rate--tires that
later turned up with many defects.
When the rank and file fought back against the goons, cops
attacked them. Court injunctions limited picketing.
It is ironic that during this corporate assault the rubber
workers asked for a national boycott of
Bridgestone/Firestone. Had the boycott succeeded, many tragic
accidents could have been avoided.
In May 1995, following a 10-month strike and prior to
their merger with the Steelworkers, the Rubber Workers agreed
to return to work. In November 1996 they signed a new
contract with the company. Still Bridgestone/Firestone kept a
majority of the scabs in the workforce.
Under the contract, a minority of union members returned
to work alongside thousands of scabs. Union workers reported
that management personnel set 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.
The last issue of the Staley Workers Solidarity Report
from January 1996 summed up conditions in the Decatur War
Zone. It spoke for all the thousands of courageous workers
from the different unions who were forced to take down their
picket lines. The scabs were in and the skilled, experienced
labor unionists were out.
Union workers would trickle back subject to the bosses'
decisions. The front-page headline was "Decatur War Zone Now
a Corporation Concentration Camp."
It was during this two-and-a-half year period of corporate
tyranny and turmoil that Bridgestone/Firestone produced the
defective tires that Ford put on its Explorers. Ford has now
publicly confirmed what was well known for years--that most
of the defective tires they bought from Bridgestone/Firestone
were built with a scab workforce in Decatur. Yet for more
than five years, Ford continued to mount these tires on their
high-selling and high-profit sport utility vehicles.
Now the corporate criminals are having a falling out. Ford
has accused Bridgestone/ Firestone of producing defective
tires in Decatur, and Ford is accused of knowing about the
defects long ago. The corporations were forced to admit the
truth because of fear that legal liability in the mounting
deaths and injuries could cost them hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Corporations face
monumental crisis
They are also worried that they will lose customers to
giant transnational competitors in the rubber and auto
industries. How this will play out among the global
corporations has yet to be revealed. But under the glare of
public scrutiny, there are reports of more deaths from the
defective tires. More groups are preparing lawsuits and the
corporations' stock prices are plunging. Both corporations
face a crisis of monumental proportions.
Ford closed three plants in order to replace defective
tires. The auto giant reported it would lose production of
10,000 Explorer and 15,000 Ranger vehicles. This will have a
ripple effect on suppliers who will have to curtail
operations.
In addition, Ford faces a recall of two million vehicles
produced from 1983 to 1995 for knowingly installing defective
ignition mechanisms, according to a complaint upheld by a
California judge.
There is now belated pressure from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration to add another 1.4 million
recalls of defective tires to the 6.5 million that were
agreed to earlier. The agency finally admits most of these
defective tires were also manufactured in Decatur.
In addition, the Venezuelan consumer protection agency has
accused both corporations of criminal activities. It is
asking the Venezuelan prosecutor to charge Ford and
Bridgestone/Firestone with conspiring to hide defects that
caused many deaths and injuries in that country. Venezuela is
one of 18 countries where tires are being recalled.
Recently John Lampe, the executive vice-president of
Bridgestone/Firestone's U.S. subsidiary, hypocritically
reported that his company "would soon appoint an independent
investigator to look into the company's products and
practices."
Ford spends millions of dollars daily on TV ads showcasing
their chief executive, Jacques Nasser, trying to control the
public relations damage and restore consumers'
confidence.
Now that the evidence is in, there will be Congressional
hearings on the culpability of the two corporations that
knowingly endangered the safety of millions of people. Past
experience indicates these hearings will be an election-year
political show that ends in no serious legislation with
penalties and controls.
The bitter events of the Decatur debacle can impart
important lessons to the workers and indicate what can be
done. It wasn't the government that brought these tragic
events to light. It was public anger and frustration fuelled
by mounting deaths and injuries that put the corporations on
trial.
It is timely and urgent during this period of crisis for
the labor movement to impart a broader, independent and
militant perspective to the over 100 million workers in the
multinational working class in the United States while these
two global giant corporations are still on the defensive.
Workers' takeover of industry
The time has come to raise the question of a workers'
takeover of the tire industry.
In his 1986 book, "High Tech, Low Pay," Workers World
Party founder Sam Marcy outlined this strategy. Marcy viewed
the demand for a workers' takeover as a "possibility of
overturning the capital-labor relationship in a huge plant or
preferably, where it might be more successful, in an
industry." He proposed that this demand should be raised
during a crisis.
The Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford crisis is no isolated
event. It is endemic to all the giant transnational
corporations that impose their financial power here and
around the globe in the sacred name of profits.
Didn't the Verizon strike prove that without an
experienced and skilled workforce, notwithstanding the
thousands of management scabs working 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, the biggest telecommunications corporation in
the world was powerless? Yes, it did.
The workers are capable of running any industry. Raising
the issue of workers' control over the corporation will find
favor not only among the multinational working class here but
the millions of consumers who are suspicious of products
manufactured by the transnational corporations.
Even if there is no strike to rally around, the slogan of
a workers' takeover of the industry would enable the labor
movement to prepare, educate and organize for the days
ahead.
Workers' control over production and all conditions in the
workplace raises the issue of the right to occupy the plants
to safeguard jobs--especially in this period of mega-mergers
that dominates corporate life. When workers on strike
occupied factories during the late 1930s--known as the sit-in
strikes--they gave a splendid example of what could be done
during a crisis.
Veterans of the Decatur War Zone have a strong message for
the hundreds of thousands of trade unionists who are marching
on Labor Day. It's inscribed on their T-shirts: "Never
forget."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
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