Word: rubbers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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What is it like to work in a U.S. factory that has been taken over by the Japanese? It has been more than four years since the Firestone Tire & Rubber plant in LaVergne, Tenn., was bought outright for $52 million by Bridgestone of Tokyo, Japan's No. 1 tiremaker. Some obvious things have not changed in that time: workers still labor over tire presses, for example, and steel- belted radials still roll off the line. But in any number of subtle and not so subtle ways, the influence of the new owners can be felt throughout the factory and indeed...
Worker-management frictions began even before Bridgestone (the name comes from the surname of the company's founder, which translates as "stone bridge" in Japanese) took over the factory in January 1983. During preliminary negotiations with United Rubber Workers Local 1055, the plant union, an angry blue-collar leader became abusive, brought up Pearl Harbor and asked the Japanese present to get out of the bargaining room. To his amazement, they did, flying all the way back to Japan. A deal governing labor relations was struck only after the union wrote an apology and formally asked Bridgestone to come back...
...connection with the strangulation of a black worker who defied the strike call. At the Harmony mine, owners fired 74 miners who were said to have damaged the underground telephone system and harassed other workers. At an Anglo-American Corp. plant east of Johannesburg, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to evict 300 protesters. Later in the week, police fired birdshot at strikers at an Optimum coal mine, injuring at least 27 miners...
...decision is a dramatic rebuke and potential financial disaster for RKO's parent company, Akron-based GenCorp (formerly General Tire and Rubber). Unless the ruling is overturned on appeal, the value of RKO assets -- now estimated to be worth $750 million or more -- could plummet by 90%. Reason: most of the value of a broadcasting station resides in its license. Nonetheless, GenCorp may be able to salvage some of its RKO investment. The company has agreed to sell its highly regarded KHJ-TV to the Walt Disney Co. for $217 million and three radio stations to other buyers...
...skin." Archer, who did not show his back as evidence, testified that he spent the evening in question dining at a fashionable Mayfair restaurant named Le Caprice. Even the judge seemed sympathetic to the plaintiff, instructing the jurors to think carefully whether Archer was "in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel...