Word: decatur
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...past few years, he has been stumbling from one pseudo crusade to another, likening every minor crisis--the expulsion of six roughnecks from a Decatur, Ill., high school; the supposed lynching of a Mississippi youth, which turned out to be a suicide--to the glorious civil rights battleground of Selma, Ala. Since last fall, he has been tussling with his former protege, Al Sharpton, who annoyed Jackson by launching a boycott of Burger King, which has long been one of Jackson's corporate allies. Not until last year's presidential campaign, when Jackson worked his heart out to help produce...
...recall that began last August. So far, tread separations involving Firestone tires have resulted in 148 deaths in the U.S., some 500 injuries and 275 other lawsuits. The recall stretches beyond the 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires, most of which were made at Firestone's Decatur, Ill., plant. Last week the company called in 8,000 tires made in Mexico...
Tauzin kept the heat on Firestone too. He took the firm to task for apparently ignoring its own 1996 high-speed tests, which showed that 1 out of 10 tires at its Decatur, Ill., plant experienced problems. Executive vice president John Lampe insisted that failures under severe conditions are a normal part of the development process--and then promptly turned on Ford. Echoing the sentiment of safety advocates, Lampe stressed that Ford had created a "low safety margin" by recommending a low pressure for tires on the Explorer--26 p.s.i. vs. Firestone's 30. Though Ford picked that level...
...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...