Word: decatur
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...Strike at Bridgestone/Firestone. The plant in Decatur, Ill. - later known as the war zone - is especially hard...
...deaths in Saudi Arabia and surrounding Gulf states to some of the tires Ford quietly replaced there in the summer of 1999. The company says it knows of no such deaths. Firestone says it wasn't aware of a noticeable rise in claims for tires coming out of its Decatur plant until Ford did a sophisticated computer analysis in late July. However, according to testimony given by one of its former employees late last year, the company did its own regular quarterly analysis of adjustment data, plant by plant, every few months. And though NHTSA began its investigation...
...Also disturbing is the fact that one of the most important parts of the tire-making process may have been compromised at the Decatur plant. Ex-employees, dismissed by Firestone as disgruntled, have recently testified in court that the facility was suffering from various quality-control problems in the mid-'90s. A former production worker there tells TIME that around 1993 supervisors implemented a policy that shortened the time spent curing, or cooking, the tires - when the different layers are bonded together under intense heat - from 26 to 16 minutes. Firestone did not return calls for comment...
...though, there were other signals that should perhaps have caught Ford's attention. As Firestone struggled to keep up with the insatiable appetite for Explorers, labor strife was brewing at its Decatur plant - dubbed the war zone by activists. A bitter 10-month walkout in 1994-95 left the assembly lines in the hands of unskilled replacement workers, who had few veterans to train under, and the labor dispute wasn't finally resolved until 1996. When the strike was settled, many of the old hands did not return to their jobs, and Firestone's Japanese parent, Bridgestone, shifted supervisors around...
...Lawyers and safety advocates think the focus on Decatur is a red herring that would isolate the problem and limit the companies' potential liability. If it was a manufacturing problem, safety advocates ask, why didn't any of the other 50 or so lines of tires made at the plant fail? They may have a point. A former employee at the company's plant in Wilson, N.C., also described by Firestone as disgruntled, has testified to similar quality-control issues at that facility...