Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

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Bridgestone Firestone, LLC <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; padding:16px 0 16px 0;">Image:BFlogo.gif</td></tr>
Type	Subsidiary of Bridgestone
Founded	1900 (Akron, Ohio)
Headquarters	Nashville, Tennessee <tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Key people</th><td>Mark A. Emkes, CEO</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Industry</th><td>Manufacturing</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Products</th><td>Tires</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Revenue</th><td>Image:Green Arrow Up.svg$2.09 billion USD (2004)</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Employees</th><td>23,000</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Website</th><td>www.firestone.com</td></tr>

The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900.<ref name = "LA"> Sanchez, Jesus (February 17 1988). "Bridgestone to Buy Firestone Tire Business". Los Angeles Times. "What Nevin has been doing is liquidating pieces of the company" in order to boost Firestone's stock price, said Donald F. DeScenza, an analyst with Nomura Securities. "It was a conscious, deliberate plan he has followed from the outset -- it was his mandate." </ref> to supply pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles and befriended Henry Ford. The company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires.<ref name = "LA"/> Firestone used this relationship to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.

1 History
2 Liberia Controversy
3 TV ad jingle
4 Notes
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of its archrival, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company initiated operations in 1900 with 12 employees.<ref name="bridge">History of Bridgestone/Firestone, Bridgestone/Firestone Canada, 2002.</ref> Together, Firestone and Goodyear were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over three-quarters of a century.

During the 1970s, the Firestone 500 steel-belted radials were known to separate from the tread, usually at high speeds, due to water seeping under the tread, which caused the belting to rust and the treading to separate. Joan Claybrook, who was the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated before the Transportation Subcommittee United States Senate Committee on Appropriations on September 6, 2000, that, "there was a documented coverup by Firestone of the 500 defect, spurred by the lack of a Firestone replacement tire."

In March 1978, NHTSA announced publicly a formal investigation into defects of the Firestone 500. Firestone first asserted that only 400,000 tires produced at the Decatur plant were defective. But the NHTSA investigation found that the tread separation defect was a design performance defect affecting all Firestone 500's. After forty-one deaths, and after Firestone initially blamed consumers (improper repairs, rough use, or under-inflation), on October 20, 1978, Firestone then recalled ten million tires.<ref name = "school"> Firestone’s Second Big Tire Blowout. Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved on 2006-06-02. </ref><ref name = "joan"> Statement of Joan Claybrook On Firestone Tire Defect and Ford Explorer Rollovers Before the Transportation Subcommittee United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. www.citizen.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-02. Quote: "Firestone balked at cooperating". </ref>

When John J. Nevin became president in 1980, Firestone began selling off unprofitable plants and began buying back the company's stock. Firestone boosted the number of its automotive repair shops, which account for nearly 20% of the company's $3.9 billion in 1988 annual sales. The company also relocated its headquarters away from Akron, Ohio -- the traditional home of the nation's rubber and tire-making industry -- to Chicago. The company was purchased by the Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone in 1988.<ref name = "LA" /><ref name = "money"> Morgenson, Gretchen, Caroline Baer. "Winning in a Jittery Market; Institutions rule, but you can still come out way ahead of the big boys". Money: 58. "Firestone's new chairman recently sold off unprofitable plants and began buying back the company's stock. The shares responded to the repurchase plan, moving from $10 to $19 in three years." </ref><ref name = "bill"> (September 7 1992) "The Billionaries". Fortune: 98. </ref><ref name = "BW"> (April 23 1984) "Firestone After the Turnaround: Where Next?". Business Week. But Nevin, who became chief executive in September, 1980, moved decisively. He closed down a third of Firestone's U.S. tire capacity -- most of it in outmoded nonradials. He slashed inventories and slow-moving tire lines and sold much of the company's foreign interests as well as many U.S. nontire businesses. From 1979 to 1983, the number of Firestone's U.S. salaried employees fell by 27%. A $700 million debt reduction pared its debt-to-equity ratio to a healthy 28%. </ref> The combined Bridgestone/Firestone North American operations are now based in Nashville, Tennessee.

After the merger, allegations of defective tire designs began for the second time in 2000, when an abnormally high failure rate in their Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX, and ATX II tires resulted in multiple lawsuits, as well as an eventual mandatory recall. In 2001 Bridgestone/Firestone severed its ties to Ford citing a lack of trust. The lack of trust came about concerns that Ford had not heeded warnings by Bridgestone/Firestone relating to the design of the Ford Explorer.<ref name = "cnn"> Isidore, Chris (May 21 2001). "Firestone severs ties to Ford". CNN. </ref> In 2006, Firestone announced renewed efforts to recall tires of the same model recalled in 2000 after such tires were linked to recent deaths and injuries. Although Firestone estimates 97% of the tires were replaced in the 2000 recall concern existed over spare tires that many owners did not think to replace during the 2000 recall.<ref name = "cnn2006"> Firestone tires recall linked to recent deaths. cnn.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-30. </ref>

For 35 years, the company sponsored the radio and television show The Voice of Firestone.

[edit] Liberia Controversy

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According to CNN, in 1926, Firestone opened what it claims is the world's biggest rubber plantation in Liberia, West Africa. In 2005, "tappers" (workers who extract latex from rubber trees) on the Liberian plantation filed an Alien Tort Claims Act lawsuit against Bridgestone Firestone. The workers accuse the company of serious labor abuses, including exploitative child labor, which they claim amount to modern-day slavery. Workers specifically claim that Firestone's high daily quotas force them to employ their own children, subjecting them to grueling and dangerous work conditions. In response to the claims, the president of Firestone Natural Rubber told a CNN interviewer that "each tapper will tap about 650 trees a day, where they spend perhaps a couple of minutes at each tree." As the network pointed out, this would add up to more than 21 hours of work per day.<ref name="CNN"> Is Bridgestone/Firestone Exploiting Liberian Workers?. CNN. </ref>

Firestone requested to transfer the case to Indianapolis, Indiana from California and this request was granted in April 2006. ^{[citation needed]}

In May 2006, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) released a report detailing the state of human rights on Liberia's rubber plantations. According to the report, Firestone managers in Liberia admitted that the company does not effectively monitor its own policy prohibiting child labor. UNMIL found that several factors contribute to the occurrence of child labor on Firestone plantations: pressure to meet company quotas, incentive to support the family financially, and lack of access to basic education. The report also noted that workers' housing provided by Firestone has not been renovated since the houses were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s.<ref name = "UNMIL Rubber"> Human Rights in Liberia's Rubber Plantations: Tapping into the Future. unmil.org. </ref>