Word: nader
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Occasionally the people whom Nader is trying to help seem more resentful of his efforts than do his corporate targets. On his taxi rides through Washington, cabbies regularly berate him because they must now pay for seat belts and 28 other pieces of mandatory safety equipment. Nader sympathizes with them but argues that the automakers could reduce prices by at least $700 per car if they would do away with costly annual style changes. Even Lyndon Johnson, who signed the 1966 auto-safety bill into law, has found some Nader innovations irritating. On a drive across his Texas ranch, L.B.J...
...movement that Nader fostered goes by the awkward name of "consumerism." It belongs to an age of discontent that has roiled campuses and ghettos, subjected old certitudes to new doubts and stimulated individual assertiveness. Economist Walter Heller says: "People are much more questioning of authority, including the authority of the marketplace...
...SLOPPY SERVICE. Consumers Union, a nonprofit, private testing organization of which Nader is a board member, distributed 20 deliberately broken TV sets to New York City homes and asked neighborhood repairmen to fix them: only three of the 20 were properly serviced. Television, air-conditioner and many other repairmen commonly refuse even to look at a cantankerous appliance until they collect a substantial "estimate fee." Texas authorities have forced finance companies to return $1,900,000 to victims of unscrupulous and outrageously sloppy home-improvement firms. Automobile repairing has broken down so badly that automakers have instituted training programs...
...Health, Education and Welfare pretest some kinds of toys for safety. By the estimate of the Product Safety Commission, about 100,000 persons each year are injured when they walk through safety glass; yet builders have repeatedly refused to make it stand out better by marking it clearly. Nader has charged over nationwide TV that complex electronic medical equipment causes large numbers of unreported electrocutions in hospitals; doctors have estimated, he said, that anywhere from 1,200 to 12,000 patients per year are electrocuted. Official safety regulations, where they do exist, are often loosely enforced. Last month the Department...
...buyers' bill of rights." The President declared: "Consumerism is a healthy development that is here to stay." Among other things, he proposed the establishment of a new consumer division in the Justice Department and expanded powers that would enable the FTC to seek injunctions against unfair business practices. As Nader and other consumer activists have long been demanding, the President also asked Congress to allow consumers to join together in "class action" damage suits in federal courts against errant manufacturers or merchants. If found guilty of deceptive trade practices, manufacturers would have to bear all legal fees and pay damages...